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LIVES 



CHIEF FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fa- 
thers; let hioa not leave us, nor forsake us. 

1 Kings 8: 57. 

VOL. III. 



F: 






3 



THE LIFE 



OF 



JOHN ELIOT; 



WITH AN ACCOUNT 



OF THE EARLY MISSIONARY EFFORTS 



AMONG 



THE INDIANS OF NEW ENGLAND, 



By NEHEMIAH ADAMS, 

PASTOR OF SSSEX STREET CHURCH, BOSTON. 



Written for the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, and 
approved by the Committee of Publication. 



BOSTON: 

MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETV, 

Depository, No. 13 Cornhill. 

18 47. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, 

By CHRISTOPHER C.DEAN, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



ADVERTISEMENT 

BY THE PUBLISHING COMMITTEE. 



The substance of this book is a Lecture delivered in 
1842, before the Young Men's Missionary Association 
of Boston. On application of the Publishing Com- 
mittee, the author has consented to enlarge it for 
publication, as one of the Series of the Lives of the 
New England Fathers. 



1* 



SEAL OF THE 



MASSACHUSETTS (OR SALEM) COLONY. 




TRANSLATION. 



Seal of the Governor and Colony of Massachusetts 
Bay in New England. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 



INTKODUCTORYCHAPTEK. 

Missionary object of the Pilgrims. Seal of Massachusetts Colony. 
Reasons with the Pilgrims for leaving Holland. Extnict from the 
Royal Charter of the Plymouth Colony. Charter of the Salem 
Company. Thoughts on this Continent as a field for Missionary 
efforts. Account of the landing at Plymouth, and the first meeting 
with the Indians. First Missionary efforts among them. Man- 
ners and habits of the New England Indians. Numbers in the 
various tribes. Reflections on the Missionary character and efforts 
of the Pilgrims. The May-flower. 

A PROMINENT object with the Pilgrim fathers in 
coming hither, was, to preach the Gospel to the 
Indians of this Continent. 

Many popular orators and writers represent 
them, as it were, following and worshiping a 
goddess of liberty. But it was not for the mere 
liberty of believing and doing what they pleased 
that they braved the ocean and the perils of this 
wilderness. Two great motives influenced 
them. For the liberty of worshiping God ac- 



8 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

cording lo their own consciences, they " went 
out not knowing," as the event proved, " whither 
they went." But this was not all ; they had a 
missionary object in coming here. 

It is an interesting fact that the original seal 
of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, who arrived 
and settled at Salem in 162S, had on it a North 
American Indian, with these words proceeding 
from his mouth, " Come over and help us." 
This device on the seal of their colony pub- 
lished to the world the fact that they regarded 
themselves as foreign missionaries to North 
America. This was also the case with their 
brethren of the Plymouth Colony, who arrived 
eight years before. 

The Pilgrims had fled to Holland, from the 
persecutions of the English Church. In the 
account of their residence in Holland we find 
some records which establish beyond a doubt 
the fact of their missionary intentions in coming 
to these shores. Governor Bradford, in his His- 
tory of Plymouth, speaking of the Pilgrims 
while yet in Holland, says, " This year, (1617,) 
Mr. Robinson and his Church begin to think of 
a remove to America, for several weighty rea- 
sons, as (1.) The difficulties in Holland dis- 
couraged many from coming to them out of 
England, and obliged many to return. (2.) 



LIFE OF JOilN ELIOT. 

By reason of these difliculties with tlie licen- 
tiousness of the youth, and temptations of the 
place, many of their children left their parents, 
some of them becoming soldiers, others taking 
to foreign voyages, and some to dissoluteness 
and the danger of their souls, to the great grief 
of their parents, and fear lest their posterity 
through these temptations and examples should 
degenerate, and religion die among them. (3.) 
From an inward zeal and great hope of laying 
some foundation or making way for propagating 
the kingdom of Christ to the remote ends of the 
earth, though they should be but as stepping 
stones to others." 

They obtained letters patent from the crown 
authorizing them to settle in North Virginia. 
The following is an extract from the Royal 
Charter, and is of the same purport with the 
third reason assigned by Governor Bradford for 
their removal to America. The Royal Charter 
says, — " We have thought it fit, according to 
our kingly duty — to second and follow God's 
holy will, by which means we may with bold- 
ness go on to the settling of so hopeful a work 
which tendelh to the reducing and conversion of 
such savages as remain wandering in desolation 
and distress, to civil society and Christian re- 
ligion." 



10 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

It is well known that the Colonists who 
received this Charter, and sailed for North Vir- 
ginia, were driven into the waters of Cape 
Cod, and thus unintentionally landed and settled 
at Plymouth. 

The Charter of " the Colony of Massachu- 
setts Bay," who settled a few years after at 
Salem, says, " To win and incite the natives of 
that country to the knowledge and obedience of 
the only true God and Saviour of mankind and 
the Christian faith, is, in our royal intention and 
the adventurer's free profession, the principal 
end of the plantation." 

The Committee of the " Massachusetts " 
Company, in their letter dated at Gravesend, 
and addressed to Mr. Endicott, the leader, and 
afterward the Governor, of the Massachusetts or 
Salem Colony, say, " For that the propagating 
the Gospel is the thing we profess above all in 
settling this plantation, we have been careful to 
make plentiful provision of good ministers.'"^ 



* See Laws of Mass. I., page 77, Sect. 8, 9. 

" Whereas one end in planting these parts teas to propagate the 
true religion unto the Indians, and that divers of them are become 
subject unto the English, and have engaged themselves to be ready 
and willing to understand the law of God : It is therefore ordered thai 
such necessary and wholesome laws which are in force, and may be 
made from time to time, to reduce them to civility of life, shall be 
once a year, if the times be safe, made known to them by such fit 
persons as the general court shall appoint." 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 11 



It is interesting^ to think of this Continent as 
having been the object of missionary zeal and 
efforts witli the pilgrim fathers. The place 
which this continent occupies on the globe is 
peculiar and interesting. The numerous nations 
of the old world are crowded together in one 
hemisphere, and this continent is the prominent 
object of the other. It did not seem presump- 
tion to the pilgrims to believe that God laid its 
deep foundations by itself, in the midst of the 
oceans rolling between it and the rest of the 
globe, for some purpose as singular as its posi- 
tion. In the writings of ancient poets there are 
remarkable allusions to this continent, when as 
yet it was undiscovered. Seneca, a Latin writer, 
who lived at the beginning of the Christian era, 
has in his *' Medea" this declaration : " The 
time will come in remote years when the ocean 
will unloose the present boundaries of nature, 
and a great country wall appear. Another Ty- 
phis will discover new worlds, and Thule will 
no longer be the limit of the earth. '"^ Homer 
and Horace had sung of Islands west of Africa, 
the Atlantides, which were " the Elysian fields." 

* " Venicnt annis 

" Secula seris, quibus Oceanus 
Vincula rerum. laxet, el iiigens 
Paleat lellus, Typhis que novos 
Delegel orbes ; nee ail lenis 
Ultima Thule " 

M«dea, Act, 3., v. 375. 



12 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Hanno, the Carthaginian general and great 
navigator, had sailed from the pilhirs of Hercu- 
les, (the straits of Gibraltar,) westward, thirty 
days. Some suppose that he must have seen 
America, or some of the neighboring islands.* 
Columbus verified the dreams and surmises of 
the world; the Cabots pursued his sublime dis- 
coveries, and they, with their Bristol crews, 
long accustomed to Icelandic fisheries, found 
this continent. New adventurers carried home 
some of the native Indians ; and, at length, a 
new Continent, inhabited by wild men, became 
the subject of intense interest to the civilized 
world. Our pious forefathers, while yet in the 
old world, fancied that they heard the Macedo- 
nian cry from the Indians here, and it quick- 
ened their flight, as they say, " to follow Christ 
into a waste howling wilderness." 

Having been driven into the waters of Cape 
Cod, instead of North Virginia, and making a 
safe harbor on Saturday, the Pilgrims fell on 
their knees and blessed the God of heaven. The 
Sabbath came ; the Mayflower riding at anchor, 
and the exploring party in the shallop, kept the 
first Sabbath of the Lord which, perhaps, had 
ever been recognized in this region, since God 
rested from his works. 



* " America known to the Ancientu." Bostwn, 177i<, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 13 

" Monday," says Prince, in his New England 
Chronology, '• the people go ashore to refresh 
thennselves; — the whales play round about 
them, and the greatest store of fowl they ever 
saw. But the earth here a company of sand 
hills, and the water so shallow near the shore, 
they were forced to wade a bow-shot or two to 
get to land, which being freezing weather, 
afTecteth them with grievous coughs and colds, 
which after proves the death of many. When 
they had marched a mile southward, they see 
five or six savages whom they follow ten miles 
till night, but could not overtake them, and 
lodge in the woods. The next day they come 
to a place of graves, then to some heaps of sand, 
when they dig into them, and find several bas 
kets full of Indian corn, and take some, for 
which they purpose to give the natives full sat- 
isfaction as soon as they could meet with any of 
them." Two days after, they returned to bor- 
row more corn ; the ground had frozen a foot 
deep, but they made up their corn, says Gover- 
nor Morton, to ten bushels; the next day some 
of the party, having spent the night there, dug 
again into some little hillocks, but they found 
that instead of being cornhills they were graves. 
By the overruling providence of God, the corn 
which they had thus borrowed with such good 
VOL. :ii. 2 



14 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

intent to repay, furnished them with seed for the 
ensuing spring. Here we have the first scene 
of their approach to the wild objects of their 
pious and benevolent endeavors. 

During the month of February, after their 
arrival, the colony were afterw^ards informed 
that the Indians assembled all their Powwaws, or 
the conjurers of the country, to curse them with 
their horrid ceremonies and incantations. They 
held their assembly for this purpose in a dark 
and dismal swamp. 

On the morning of March 16th, however, 
they say a savage boldly came alone along the 
houses straight to the rendezvous, and surprised 
them Avith calling out, " Welcome, Englishmen ! 
Welcome, Englishmen ! " It seems that he had 
learned some broken English from the fishermen 
of Nova Scotia. He said that his name was 
Samoset, that he .was sagamore or lord of a 
country " a day's sail thence with a great 
wind," or five days land travel. He told them 
that four years ago all the inhabitants of the 
place where they then were, (now Plymouth,) 
died of an extraordinary plague ; that there was 
neither man, woman, nor child remaining. At 
night they lodged and watched him. A few 
days after he returned with an Indian named 
Squanto, whom a man by the name of Hunt had 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 15 

carried to Spain with nineteen others, and who 
by some means went to England, and lived in 
Cornhill, London, with Mr. John Slanie, mer- 
chant. He could speak a little English, and 
thus he was extremely useful to the colonists in 
assisting them to trade and make treaties with 
the surrounding Indians. They endeavored to 
conciliate the natives, but wisely mingled inti- 
mations that they were prepared to resist them 
if attacked. 

The treacherous tribe of Narragansett Indians, 
with five thousand, fighting men, who at first 
made a treaty with the settlers, showed signs on 
one occasion of hostility. Canonicus, their chief 
Sachem, sent a bundle of arrows, tied with a 
snake's skin, which Squanto told them meant a 
challenge. Governor Bradford and his Council 
sent them word that if they had rather have war 
than peace, they might begin when they would ; 
they had done the Indians no wrong, nor did 
they fear them ; nor would the Indians find 
them unprepared. Then, with some wit, the 
Governor sent them, by another messenger, the 
snake's skin filled with powder and bullets ; but 
they refused to receive it, and sent it back. 

Thus, after various alarms, and treaties, the 
pilgrims had fortified themselves in the country, 
and individuals among them had begun the 



16 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

pious work of instructing some of the young 
Indians in the Christian religion. 

In 1621, one year after the arrival at Ply- 
mouth, Elder Robert Cushman sent word to his 
friends in England that many of the Indians, 
especially the younger of them, were teachable ; 
that if the Colony had means they would bring 
up hundreds of them to labor, and learning, and. 
that young men in England who desired to fur- 
ther the Gospel among these poor heathen, 
would do well to come over and spend their 
estates, time, and labor, in so doing. 

During the few first years after the settlement 
at Plymouth, several of the natives gave evi- 
dence of conversion, and instances of happy 
death occurred among them. But the hardships 
and trials incident to a removal into this wilder- 
ness delayed the systematic and general efforts 
of the settlers to convert the Indians. Indi- 
viduals, however, were laboring among them 
with success. In 1636, the Plymouth Colony 
enacted laws to provide for the preaching of the 
Gospel among the Indians, and ten years after, 
the Massachusetts Colony passed a similar act. 

In 1675, it was ascertained that the whole 
number of Indians in New England, beginning 
as far east as the St. Croix River, was about 
fifty thousand. Of these, about twelve thousand 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 17 

were in the neighborhood of the Massachusetts 
^and the Plymouth Colonies. 

At the settlement of this country there were 
five principal nations, or sachemships, of Indians, 
inthispartof New England, viz. 1. ThePequots; 
2. The Narragansetts ; 3. The Pawkunnaw- 
kuts ; 4. The Pawtucketts ; 5. The Massachu- 
setts. Each of these nations included several 
tribes, governed by sagamores. 

The Pequots formerly had 4000 warriors ; in 
1674, 300. 

The Narragan setts formerly had 5000 war- 
riors ; in 1674, 1000. 

The Pawkunnawkuts formerly had 3000 war- 
riors ; in 1674, nearly extinct. 

The Pawtuckets formerly had 3000 war- 
riors; in 1674, 250. 

The Massachusetts formerly had 3000 war- 
riors ; in 1674, 300. 

The Pequots inhabited the most southerly 
parts of New England, their country for the 
most part fell under the Connecticut jurisdic- 
tion. Their principal sachem lived at or near 
New London, called, in their language Pequot. 

The Narragansetts occupied Rhode Island, 
and other islands in Narragansett bay. 

The Paiokunnaivkuts inhabited the region of 
the Plymouth Colony, and their sachem held 
2# 



18 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

sway over the Sagamores of Nantucket, Martha's 
Vineyard, and neighboring places. A few years 
before the arrival of the Pilgrims, a great num- 
ber of this nation of Indians as before stated, 
were swept away by a plague, and thus the 
•way was opened for the entrance of the Pil- 
grims. 

The Pawtuckets lived to the north, and 
northeast of the Massachusetts Indians. They 
were almost wholly destroyed by the plague 
just mentioned. 

The Massachusetts Indians dwelt principally 
about the parts of Massachusetts bay which 
were first settled by the English, and bordering, 
some of them, on the region of the Pawkunnaw- 
kuts. They were very numerous and powerful. 
Their chief sachem held rule over many petty 
chiefs. This people was also visited by the 
plague in 1612-13, which destroyed the most 
of them, and prepared the way for the English 
settlers. 

This fact has often brought to mind these 
words of David : " We have heard with our 
ears, God, our fathers have told us what 
work thou didst in their day, in the times of 
old. How thou didst drive out the heathen 
with thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou 
didst afflict the people and cast them out. For 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 19 

they got not the land in possession by their own 
sword, neither did their own arm save them; 
but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the 
light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a 
favor unto them." 

An early New England writer^ says, that he 
had not been able to learn accurately the nature 
of the disease or plague which depopulated the 
Indian tribes in the remarkable manner already 
described ; but that he had " discoursed " with 
some old Indians, who told him that the patients 
were " all over exceedingly yellow," and this 
they described by showing him a yellow gar- 
ment which the bodies of the victims resembled 
in color, both before and after death. There is 
a tradition that a Frenchman, who not long 
before this plague, had fallen into their hands 
by shipwTeck, told them, as some of the surviv- 
ing shipmates reported, just before he died by 
their hands, that " God was angry with them 
for their wickedness, and would not only destroy 
them all, but would also people their country 
with men who would not live after their brutish 
manners." Those infidels then blasphemously 
replied, that God could not kill them; which 
blasphemous mistake was confuted by an hor- 
rible and unusual plague, whereby they were 

♦ Mather. 



20 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 



consumed in such vast multitudes, that our first 
planters found the land almost covered with their 
unburied carcases, and they that were left alive 
were smitten into awful and humbler regards of 
the English by the terrors which the French- 
man's prophecy had imprinted on them. 

When the Pilgrims in Holland thought of 
coming to this country, some of them hesitated 
for several reasons, and among others through 
their fear of the savages, who they heard were 
" cruel, barbarous, and treacherous, being most 
furious in their rage, and merciless where they 
overcome, not being content only to kill and 
take away life, but delight to torment men in 
most bloody manner that may be, flaying men 
alive with the shells of fishes, cutting off the 
points and members of others by piecemeals, 
and broiling them on the coals, and causing 
men to eat the collops of their flesh in their 
sight whilst they live ; with other cruehies hor- 
rible to be related."^ Some were therefore in 
favor of settling in Guiana, in South America. 
But they feared the jealousy of the Spaniards, 
and finally concluded to settle within the juris- 
diction of the company of Virginia, where the 
English, in 1607, had made a settlement. In 
this way, they supposed that they could also 

♦ Governor Bradford's History of Plymouth. 



i 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 21 

have better access to the savages, " to reduce 
them to civil society, and the Christian religion." 
But God brought them by a way they knew not, 
having first in part cut off the heathen nations 
to bring them in. 

The May-flower sailed from Holland, Sep- 
tember 6, 1620, for the Hudson River. But 
they were driven into the waters of Cape Cod, 
and it was a current belief that the shipmaster 
was bribed by the Dutch to change her course, 
because the Dutch wished to settle in the region 
for which the Pilgrims embarked. But some of 
the best authorities deny this, and say that the 
change of their course was accidental. 

There is so much connection between climate 
and characters that we may reasonably suppose 
it to have been the intention of Providence to 
plant the Pilgrims in this cold region, and on 
this hard soil, that they might be and do that 
which is proved to have been their high destiny 
to be and to accomplish. Whereas, had they 
settled in a warmer and more enervating lati- 
tude, we cannot believe that such a New Eng- 
land as we now behold would have arisen ; it 
would have been easier for the settlers to have 
borne the imposition of slavery from the mother 
country, whereas here in Massachusetts the sturdy 
vigor and independence w^hich were borne and 



22 LIFE OF JOIIM ELIOT. 

nourished on this rocky and sandy soil, grew 
impatient of slavery, and soon threw it off, and 
hence in part the present difference between the 
North and the South, in some of the essential 
elements of natural prosperity. God brought 
the Pilgrims into these bays and harbors, and to 
this northern soil, because here the qualities 
necessary to their future usefulness and great- 
ness as a nation could be most successfully 
developed and strengthened. Instead of reducing 
the savages to slavery as they might have done 
had the institution of slavery been fastened upon 
them in southern regions, they " reduced the 
savages to civil society, and the Christian re- 
ligion." Let us return for a moment to the 
landing of the Pilgrims. 

When the May-flower had cast anchor, the 
Pilgrims fitted up the little shallop which they 
had brought in their vessel, and coasted the 
Cape for about a month to determine on the best 
place for landing and settlement. Having at 
length fixed on a place, the shallop, with the 
exploring party came to anchor on Saturday, the 
9th of December, corresponding to December 
20, New Style. The Sabbath dawned upon 
them, but the exploring party remained on 
board, notwithstanding the inmates of the May- 
flower were still at anchor, waiting to know the 



I 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 23 

result of the exploration. How beautiful and 
striking- was the coincidence of their arriving at 
Plymouth on the eve of the Sabbath. What a 
Sabbath it must have been to them. Not only 
was their comfortless and perilous voyage in a 
crowded vessel, and their anxious search for a 
landing- place now over, but their persecutions 
in the old world, their oppressive treatment from 
the Established Church for not conforming to 
rites and practices which the}'- could not observe, 
had now come to an end. Now they had found 
a new world where they might believe and wor- 
ship as they pleased. Now they would no 
longer be taxed for the support of worship in 
which they had no share. Now their ministers 
would no longer be ill-used or nick-named, for 
not conforming to unscriptural practices ; now 
they would not be obliged to keep Lent, and 
Ash-Wednesday, Candlemas, Christmas, and 
All-Saints'-day, in a manner repugnant to their 
consciences. As they looked on this great wil- 
derness, free from all corruptions of man in the 
worship of God, and pure in that respect as the 
virgin snows that covered the evergreens, and 
sheeted the old sand wastes, and shone on 
the distant hills, they could breathe freely, as 
they said in the words which indicate the essen- 
tial spirit of their faith, God is a spirit, and 



24 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

they that worship him, must worship him in 
spirit and in truth. The world has never seen 
such a sight, before or since, as that shallop and 
the May-flower in Plymouth Bay, with the pro- 
genitors of this great and glorious New Eng- 
land ; fleeing from the old world, arriving at 
this new world and keeping Sabbath at anchor 
in these waters. What has ever happened to 
be likened to it since the time when Noah and 
his family sailed away from the old world, 
which had corrupted itself before God, and 
transplanted the religion of the true God for a 
new beginning ? It would have been interesting 
to have heard the prayers, and songs of praise, 
and words of Scripture, with which they kept 
the Sabbath in their floating Bethels. We no- 
tice here that Puritan regard for the Sabbath 
which has ever characterized New England, and 
on which her safety so much depends. How 
natural it would have been for the voyagers to 
have leaped ashore at the first moment of their 
arrival in the harbor which they had concluded 
to make their home. How many passengers 
now in similar circumstances, would deny them- 
selves the pleasure of exchanging the wearisome 
confinement on ship-board, for the excitement 
and satisfaction of exploring their new home ? 
But the Pilgrims would not begin the work of 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 25 

their settlement, of removing any of their effects 
from the vessel, on the Lord's day, and since 
the time when God rested from his work on the 
Sabbath, there has not been a more sublime act 
of rest and of worship, than was observed by 
that Pilgrim band. 

All this was in accordance with their charac- 
ter and intentions as a missionary band, and for 
its relation to this view of their character we 
have dwelt at large upon this incident in their 
history. 

It cannot be impressed too deeply upon our 
minds that our forefathers did not come here 
merely to "enjoy their liberty," not merely to 
flee from persecution, not to increase their 
worldly estate ; they came here, among other 
good reasons, as they expressly declare, to ex- 
tend the kingdom of Christ, and the Royal 
Charter professed that the royal object in grant- 
ing it was that they might reduce such savages 
as they found wandering in desolation and dis- 
tress to civil society and the Christian religion. 
Does any one cherish a feeling of reverence and 
love for these pilgrims in view of their sacrifices 
and efforts to found these institutions which we 
possess, who yet feels no interest in the work of 
propagating the gospel to the ends of the earth ? 
Let him consider that a company of Christian 

VOL. III. 3 



26 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

missionaries going from this land and settling in 
India, or Africa, or Oceanica, may be the 
founders of just such institutions as we enjoy, 
among the people to whom they are sent. Let 
every missionary consider that in distant years 
he may be justly regarded as a pilgrim-father to 
some portion of the earth for whom he may 
have done as much as the New England Pil- 
grims have done for New England. The object 
of Christian missions is to re-produce and mul- 
tiply our Christian institutions in heathen and 
pagan lands. The opportunity of laying founda- 
tions in heathen wilds, similar to those which the 
Pilgrims laid here, has not come to an end. 
Many a missionary bark may yet be, essentially, 
a May-flower to distant parts of the earth. 
Some islands which were filled with savages as 
barbarous as our Indians, have had their inde- 
pendence recognized by Christian nations, and 
have taken their place among the nations of the 
earth; and that band of American missionaries 
who left these shores for the Sandwich Islands in 
1820, and who went round Cape Horn singing 
the old hymn in the tune of Melton Mowbray, 

"Head of the church triumphant, 
We cheerfully adore thee," &c., 

and who planted the Gospel on those islands, 
will no doubt in after times have their names 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 27 

enshrined by a grateful posterity in those distant 
seas. The little schooner which the Rev. 
John Williams, the martyr of Rarotonga, built 
with his own hand, to visit the islands of the 
Harvey group, was a real "May-flower." 
Prophetic visions of the effects of the Gospel 
we see fulfilled on these shores and around the 
globe. Here, emphatically, " instead of the 
thorn has come up the fir-tree, and instead of 
the brier the myrtle-tree." In what way can 
we cherish the memory of our Pilgrim fathers 
better than to keep alWe in us and our children 
that zeal to spread the Christian religion and 
Christian institutions, which was one of the 
strong impulses that bore them across the flood ? 
As the missionary spirit was the native air in 
which the pilgrim faith was born and nurtured, 
we may believe that the same spirit will most 
effectually cherish those institutions and laws 
which are the fruit of their wisdom. That spirit 
is a sincere desire to see the glory of God 
promoted in the world, a willingness to make 
efforts and sacrifices " that his way may be 
known on earth, his saving health among all na- 
tions." 

" The May-flower " ! That name must have 
been proposed by some gentle wife, or by some 
sweet child, to the man who built that favored 



28 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

vessel ! She was, in her seasonableness, more 
than a May-floicer ; she was the Crocus among 
the eternal snows and the dreary winter of this 
western savage world. In the selection of her for 
the great mission which she accomplished, angels 
might have said to her, as they came to be min- 
istering spirits to those in her who were to be, 
in more than one sense, " heirs of salvation," 
as Gabriel said to ]\Iary, " Hail, thou that art 
highly favored — the Lord is with thee !" The 
name of this vessel is one of those instances, of 
which we see so many in the word, the provi- 
dence of God, in which " the beauty of the 
Lord our God " appears in connection with his 
acts of renown. To the cold eye of reason that 
name was only a mercantile accident ; the eye of 
faith is willing to be accounted visionary while it 
sees in it that same hand which, after the deluge, 
selected the rainbow instead of a periodical tem- 
pest, or a Dead Sea, as the memorial of a cove- 
nant with the earth. 

The painting of the Landing of the Pilgrims, 
by Weir, justly represents some of the pilgrim 
company as of cultivated and even polished ap- 
pearance and manners ; they were not the 
ofTscouring of the earth. They were men and 
women of whom, in their day, the world was 
not worthy. For scholarship, intelligence, and 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 29 



moral worth, the Pilgrims and their associates 
in the old countries would have been ornaments 
to the land which chased them away. The 
reader will fmd this illustrated in a satisfactory 
manner in the Life of the Kev. John Cotton, by 
the Rev. A. W. M'Clure, in the first two vol- 
umes in this series of the Lives of eminent N. 
E. Puritans. 



3# 



30 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 



CHAPTER II. 

Descriplionof the Indians, Their manners, habits, mode of life, <tc. 
Efforts lo convert them, previous to Eliot's labors. 

Some account of the manners and habits of 
the Indians, as our forefathers and their succes- 
sors found them, will be neces.sary that we may 
appreciate the labors and self-denial which were 
required of those who instructed these sons of 
the forest in religion and civilization. A correct 
knowledge of their original condition dispels 
the romantic associations which many have with 
the name of a North American Indian. The 
lowest degradation had been reached by these 
savages. The laws of a people are a true pic- 
ture of the people, and some of the laws which 
the Indians enacted when they began to be civil- 
ized, reveal the misery and filthiness from which 
they began at last lo be recovered. This will 
be illustrated as we proceed. 

We will speak first of tlie personal appear- 
ance of the Indian. 

Their skin was of a tawny color, a yellowish, 
dark complexion. Their form and limbs were 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 31 

well proportioned, and it was seldom that a 
crooked person was found among them. Their 
hair was long, black, and coarse, without curl- 
ing ; their eyes black, without lustre. In their 
general appearance they were so much like 
the Moors of Africa, that many have supposed 
them to have come originally from that part of 
the world. 

They had many wives, but one of them was 
chief in her husband's regard. They put away 
their wives, and the wife also left her husband 
when offended with him. 

Their revengeful disposition is proverbial. 
The relatives of an injured or murdered Indian 
regarded his wrong as done to them, and they 
sought satisfaction in the death of the offender, or 
in the payment of wampum, (or shells,) which 
passed with them for money. 

They were an idle race, especially the men. 
Tillage was chiefly performed by the women, 
thous^h to but little extent. The women also 
carried burdens, as in removing from place to 
place. They also prepared the food. 

Their wigwams were made with slim poles 
fixed in the ground, bent, and fastened at the 
top with the bark of trees. The best of them 
were made tight and warm with the whole 
barks of trees, pressed when green by a heavy 



32 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 



weight of limber. A common sort of bulrushes 
woven together, made mats for the covering of 
the poorer houses. The houses varied in size, 
from twenty to forty feet square, and some were 
from sixty to a hundred feet long, and thirty feet 
broad. In the smaller houses a fire was kindled 
in the centre, but in the larger, several fires 
were made for the convenience of the inmates. 
A hole in the top of the house served the place 
of a chimney, and on the top of the house a mat 
was suspended, to serve the purpose of a venti- 
lator to the smoke, being set to the windward 
side. Their bedsteads were made of rude boards 
split from the tree, and raised about a foot from 
the ground, covered with skins, or with mats of 
woven grass, or bulrushes. 

Their principal food was a kind of pottage in 
which it would be difTicult to say what article 
prevailed. Indian corn, kidney beans, all kinds 
of flesh and fish, cut in small pieces with the 
bones, many kinds of roots, artichokes, ground- 
nuts, squashes, oak acorns, walnuts, and chest- 
nuts, were boiled together. The nuts being 
dried, and powdered, were used as flour to 
thicken the mess. They made a cake of parched 
corn, which they called nokake. This they 
took with them in their travels, and is said 
to have been so hearty a kind of food, that they 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 33 

subsisted on it many days in their wanderings 
from place to place. 

Their household utensils corresponded in 
simplicity to their food, and mode of cooking. 
The pots were made of clay, in the shape of an 
egg without the top. They were glad to receive 
pots of metal, as the earth of which they made 
their brittle vessels was scarce and dear. They 
used a kind of wood which was not liable to 
split, for dishes, spoons, and ladles. Their 
water pails were made of birch bark, folded 
square, with a handle or bail. Some of them 
held two or three gallons, and they could make 
one of them in the space of an hour. They, 
wrought pictures of birds, beasts, fishes and 
flowers of divers colors in their baskets, which 
were made of corn husks, silk grass, and wild 
hemp. 

They formerly used no drink but water, 
though they soon learned from the settlers the 
manufacture and use of cider. When they be- 
came acquainted with intoxicating drinks, they 
showed a violent love for them, by which their 
savage passions and propensities were fearfully 
excited. 

Their clothing was, at first, of skins, and some 
had mantles of birds' feathers, twilled together. 
Even the most barbarous of them were decent 



34 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

in covering their persons, and were never seen 
naked in public. 

One of their principal remedies in sickness 
was, to put the patient, and sometimes several 
patients together, in a rude stone house, which 
they would heat by building fires round it, and 
having thus put the sick into a violent perspira- 
tion, they would plunge them into a neighboring 
brook. 

They divided time into sleeps, and moons, 
and winters. It is a curious fact that they called 
the Constellation, Charles' Wain, by the same 
name with the English, the Bear. Like the 
early eastern nations, they seem to have pon- 
dered the face of the heavens, and to have made 
figures of the stars. 

Their money consisted of shells, or strings of 
shells, the black being double in value to the 
white. The Tnints of their money seem to 
have been at Block Island, and Long Island, 
upon whose sandy flats and shores, these welk 
shells were chiefly found. It was called wom- 
pompeague, or, wompeague, and by contrac- 
tion, wompum, or, wampum. They redeemed 
captives, paid tribute, made satisfaction for 
wrongs, and murders, and purchased peace of 
their more powerful neighbors, with strings of 
this wampum. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 35 

Their weapons were bows and arrows, clubs, 
tomahawks, made of wood like a pole axe, with 
a sharp stone in the head. They used targets 
or shields of bark. 

They formerly smeared their skin with bears' 
grease, but when the English swine afforded 
them lard, they used it as a substitute, and thus 
having anointed themselves, they painted their 
faces with vermilion, or red, and powdered 
their heads. Sometimes they painted one half 
of the face black, and the other v.^hite, and so, 
with various colors, deformed their visages, the 
women, especially, doing this, and the warriors 
thereby making themselves hideous in battle. 
Widows, mourning for their husbands, painted 
their faces wholly black. The men preparing for 
war put their hair in a roll, and surmounted it 
with turkey's or eagle's feathers, with other fan- 
tastic and showy decorations. 

They took great pleasure in dancing, the 
men only dancing, and they singly, (except in 
the war dance,) with uncouth and antic gestures 
and movements of the whole body, the specta- 
tors singing or whooping. The dancer took oft^ 
his ornaments one by one as he danced, and 
gave them away to those who looked on, and 
when he had given away all that he had upon 
him, and was weary, another would succeed 



36 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

him, and thus succeeding each other they would 
spend the nights of a whole week together, 
sleeping by day. At such dancings accompa- 
nied with revelings, chiefly held after harvest, 
they were addicted to many evil practices. 

They were a hospitable race. Strangers 
were furnished with the best food and lodging, 
and were served before themselves. 

Their government was for the most part 
monarchical, the chief sachem or sagamore mak- 
ing his will the law, though there were chief men 
associated with him as counselors. In some of 
the tribes the influence of the head men was 
greater than in others, making the government 
a mixture of monarchy and aristocracy. 

They had no idols made with hands, but 
being ignorant of the true God, they adored 
natural objects ; the sun, the moon, the earth, 
fire, and other things. They supposed that 
every thing in nature has a god in it, or belong- 
ing to it, but fire they believed to be itself a 
god. They believed that there was one god in 
the southwest, who was the chief deity. 

The Indians had priests or powows, or, 
powaws, who were conjurers, who, with horrid 
rites and incantations, told their fortunes, advised 
them in their aflairs, yelled over them in their 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 37 

sick and dying moments, and performed re- 
ligious worship with terrific noises and actions, 

" Like stabled wolves or tigers at their prey, 
Doing abhorred riles to Hecate." 

The Indians believed in the immortality of 
the soul, that the good are admitted to a splen- 
did entertainment, and the wicked wander in 
agony forever, and that there is no resurrection 
of the body for good or bad. 

As to the origin of the Indians, Eoger Wil- 
liams has well expressed the truth on the sub- 
ject, in his Key into the language of the Indians 
of New England."^ 

" From Adam and Noah that they spring, it 
is granted on all hands. But for their later 
descent, and whence they came into these parts, 
It seems hard to find, as to find the well-head 
of some fresh stream which running many miles 
out of the country to the salt ocean, hath met 
with many mixing streams by the way." 

Mr. Williams gives many particulars of their 
manners and customs ; some of which are here 
added. 

Their nokake, or nokehick, parched meal, w^as 
carried by each man on a journey, or in war, in 
a basket, fastened to his back, or in a hollow 



♦ Mass. Hist. Soc., Coll. 1794., p. 206. 
VOL. III. 4 



38 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

belt. With a spoonful of this meal, and a 
spoonful of water from the brook, Mr. Williams 
says he has many a time made a good supper. 
This parched meal, boiled with water, he says, 
is the wholesomest diet they have. Nawsaump 
was a kind of meal pottage unparched, and 
from this the English derived their samp, or 
Indian corn, broken and boiled, and eaten, hot 
or cold, with milk or butter ; " which are mer- 
cies beyond the natives' plain water, and which 
is a dish exceeding wholesome for the English 
bodies." 

Tobacco was in general use among them, and 
was the only plant which the men cultivated, 
the women attending to the rest. The follow- 
ing remark, by Mr. Williams, is in good illus- 
tration of former views and feelings with regard 
to the use of spirituous liquors. " I never see 
any take tobacco so excessively as I have seen 
men in Europe; and yet excess were more 
tolerable in them, because they want the re- 
freshing of beer and wine, which God had 
vouchsafed Europe."^ 

They made up a fire, when they were lying 
down to sleep, summer and winter. " Their 
fire," says Williams, " is instead of our bed 
clothes. And so themselves, and any that 

• Key, p. 213. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 39 

have occasion to lodge with them, must be con- 
tent to turn often to the fire, if the night be 
cold ; and they who first wake must repair the 
fire." 

Bad dreams they considered as threatenings 
from God; and when they happened to them, 
they would engage in prayer at all times of the 
night. An Indian once dreamed that the sun, 
whom they worship as a god, darted a beam into 
his breast. This he took for an admonition ot 
his death. He called his friends and neighbors 
together, and prepared some refreshment for 
them ; but himself remained awake, and fasting, 
for ten days and nights in great humiliation and 
distress. 

" The women nurse all the children them- 
selves ; yet a rich or high woman maintains a 
nurse to tend the child." 

" They have amongst them natural fools, either 
so born, or accidentally deprived of reason." 

" The toothache is the only pain which will 
force their stout hearts to cry. I have never 
heard any cries among them like those of men 
in the toothache. In this pain they use a cer- 
tain root dried, not much unlike our ginger." 

" They are most skillful in cutting off the 
heads of their enemies in fight. I know the 
man, yet living, who pretended to fall from his 



40 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

own camp to the enemy, proflered his service in 
the front with them against his own army. He 
drew ihcm out to battle, keeping in front ; but, 
on a sudden, shot their chief leader and captain, 
and, in a trice, fetched off his head, and returned 
immediately to his own again. His act was 
false and treacherous ; yet herein appear policy, 
stoutness, and activity." 

" Their desire of and delight in news, is great 
as the Athenians. A stranger that can relate 
news in their own language they will style him 
manittoo, a god." 

In hearing news they sit in a circle, two, 
three, or four deep. " I have seen near a thou- 
sand in a round where English could not well 
near half so many have sitten." 

They frequently inquired " Why came the 
Englishmen hither?" The explanation most 
commonly believed among themselves at first 
was, that the English wanted fire-wood, and so 
removed to these parts, as the Indians remove 
when they have used up the wood around them. 

They kept the time of the day and the night 
with great accuracy, by observing the sun, moon, 
and stars. Living abroad in the fields and 
sleeping much out of doors, even the young 
children were expert in telling the time. The 
Indians were punctual in their promises as to 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 41 



time. Mr. Williams says they once charg-ed 
him with lying for not being punctual, though 
necessarily delayed. 

English travelers were struck with the paths 
which the bare and tough feet of the Indians had 
made in stony places. One writer says that he 
has known many of them to run between eighty 
and a hundred miles in a summer's day, and 
return within two days. He says they were so 
thoroughly acquainted with the interior of the 
country by means of hunting, that they have 
guided travelers forty miles without any path. 
They coveted horses above other beasts, prefer- 
ring the ease of riding even to the comfort of 
milk and butter from the cow. On meeting 
with one another in travel, they were very 
happy and joyful ; and striking fire, with stones 
or sticks, took tobacco, and set down to talk. 
It was quite rare to meet an old man or a lame 
man with a staff, their constitutions being gen- 
erally robust. 

The English settlers were greatly struck with 
the purity of the air and of the water in New 
England.^ But as New England is about 
twelve degrees south of England, the greater 
cold of this region is explained, Mr. Williams 
thinks, by the fact that main lands and conti- 

* See Appendix, B. 
4# 



42 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 



nents are colder than islands. " England's 
winds are sea winds, which are commonly more 
thick and vapory, and warmer winds. The 
northwest wind, which occasioneth New Eng- 
land cold, comes over the cold, frozen land, and 
over many millions of loads of snow. And yet 
the pure wholesomeness of the land is wonder- 
ful, and the warmth of the sun such in the 
sharpest weather, that I have often seen the na- 
tives' children run about stark naked in the 
coldest days, and the Indian men and women 
lie by a fire in the woods in the coldest nights ; 
and I have often been out myself such nights 
without fire, mercifully and wonderfully pre- 
served." 

It is observed by many writers that the In- 
dians had a considerable mixture of sadnpss in 
their disposition. Though nature here was 
profuse in wild animals for food, and fish, and 
fowl, and fruits, the savages were subject to 
much suffering from causes which they had no 
knowledge to understand nor skill to prevent. 
Their superstitions joined with their savage 
vices made them afraid. It would seem also, in 
noticing the proofs of this disposition to melan- 
choly, that the coming event of their disappear- 
ance as a race had cast its shadow upon their 
spirits. Mr. Williams says that they dislike 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 43 

cloths inclining to white, " but preferred to 
have a sad color, without any whitish hairs, 
suiting with their own natural temper, which 
inclines to sadness."^ 

In the spirit with which our forefathers came 
hither, seeking the conversion of the red race, 
good men from time to time pursued different 
measures for their spiritual good. But while 
other men deserve great praise for their zeal and 
industry in this benevolent work, it was reserved 
to JopiN Eliot to gain for himself the name of 
the Apostle to the Indians. The way in which 
he obtained it will now appear, and also some 
account of his life and character, with further 
notices respecting the Indians. 

Though individuals had incidentally labored 
among the Indians for their spiritual good before 
the Apostle Eliot began his efforts to give them 
the Gospel, and some useful impressions had 
been made on some of their minds, the first sys- 
tematic efforts for their conversion were made 
by him. Roger Williams' narrative was printed 
in London, in 1643. Eliot began to preach in 
the Indian tongue in 1646. Mr. Williams says, 
" Many solemn discourses I have had with 
all sorts of nations of them, from one end of 
the country to the other, so far as opportunity, 
and the little language I have, could reach. 

* See Appendix, C. 



44 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

** I know there is no small preparation in the 
hearts of niuliiiudes of them. I know their 
many solemn confessions to myself, and one to 
another, of their last wandering conditions. 

" I know not with how little knowledge and 
grace of Christ the Lord may save; and there- 
fore neither will despair, nor report much. 

" Two days before the death of Wequash, the 
Pequot captain, as I passed up to Quunnihticut 
(Connecticut) river, it pleased my worthy friend, 
Mr. Fenwick, whom I visited at his house in 
Saybrook fort, at the mouth of that river, to tell 
me that my old friend Wequash lay very sick. 
I desired to see him, and himself was pleased to 
be my guide two miles where Wequash lay. 

" Amonsrst other discourses concernini^ his 
sickness and death, in which he freely bequeathed 
his son to Mr. Fenwick, I closed with him con- 
cerning his soul. He told me that some two or 
three years before, he had lodged at my house, 
where I acquainted him with the condition of 
all mankind, and his own in particular; how 
God created man and all things ; how man fell 
from God, and his present enmity against God 
and the wrath of God against him till repent- 
ance. Said he, your words were never out of 
my heart to this present; and, said he, * Me 
much pray to Jesus Christ.' I told him so did 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 45 

many English, French, and Dutch, who had 
never turned to God nor loved him. He replied 
in broken English : ' Me so big naughty heart: 
me heart all one stone ! ' Savoring expressions 
using to breathe from compunct and broken 
hearts, and a sense of inward hardness and un- 
brokenness. I had many discourses with him 
in this life ; but this was the sum of our last 
parting, until our general meeting." ^ 

We now come to the history of the man by 
whom the work of converting and civilizing the 
Indians was carried out with the most signal 
success. 



* Roger Williams' Key, p. 26. 



46 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 



CHAPTER III. 

John Diot. Birth ami Education. Associated with Rev. Thomas 
Hooker. Arrivea at Boston. Settles in Roxbury. Anecdote. 
Discorery of Spot Pond. Marriage. Christian and Ministerial 
character. His zeal for common School Education. Notices of 
his personal character. His Congregational Sentiments. Remarks 
upon tlieni. Mr. Eliot's children. His prayers. His preaching. 
Infant Bajitism. 

John Eliot was born in Nasing, Essex, Engf- 
land, in the year 1604. All that is known of 
his parents is, that they were eminently pious, 
to which Mr. Eliot bore testimony, when he 
wrote in after life these words: " I do see that 
it was a great favor of God unto me to season 
my first years with the fear of God, the word, 
and prayer." 

He was educated in England at the Univer- 
sity of Cambridge, and was distinguished for his 
love of the languages, in which he attained un- 
common skill, especially in Hebrew and Greek. 
There is a connection between this fact and his 
labors in New England in acquiring the Indian 
tongue and translating the Bible and other books 
into it. 

The Rev. Thomas Hooker, afterwards the 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 47 

first Pastor of the Church in Cambridge, New 
England, who afterwards removed with his 
Church to Hartford, Connecticut, had been si- 
lenced for his conscientious scruples at certain 
rites and observances in the Church of England, 
after exercising the ministry four years. At the 
suggestion and request of distinguished indi- 
viduals, he established a school in the town of 
Little Braddow, near Chelmsford, in the county 
of Essex, England. Mr. Eliot was an usher in 
this school. In this school several individuals 
were trained up who became eminently useful. 
Mr. Eliot wrote an account of this school ; and 
says of it, and of his connection with the family 
of Mr. Hooker, " To this place was I called 
through the infinite riches of God's mercy in 
Christ Jesus to my poor soul ; for here the Lord 
said unto my dead soul. Live ; and, through the 
grace of Christ, I do live, and I shall live for- 
ever. When I came to this blessed family, I 
then saw, and never before, the power of godli- 
ness in its lively vigor and efficacy." 

By the influence of Mr. Hooker, Mr. Eliot 
was led to devote himself to the Christian minis- 
try. Seeing the corruptions of the Church of 
England, and the oppressive spirit of those in 
authority towards all who would not conform to 
the ceremonies and practices of the Established 



48 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Church, he resolved that he would go to Amer- 
ica, that he might preach the gospel without 
restraint. 

He came to Boston in November, 1631, in 
the ship " Lyon," with Governor Winthrop's 
lady and children, and sixty others. There was 
then no minister at the Church in Boston, Rev. 
Mr. "Wilson, their pastor, having gone to Eng- 
land to settle his affairs. Mr. Eliot joined the 
Church at Boston, and preached to them a part 
of a year, till the return of Mr. Wilson, when 
the Church wished to make him colleague and 
teacher with Mr. Wilson. But he had engaged 
with several individuals, in England, that if they 
should remove to America, he would be their 
minister. They came the year after his arrival, 
and settled at Roxbury ; and having formed a 
Church there, secured the services of Mr. Eliot. 
He was then twenty-eight years old, and he 
continued as Pastor of the Church in Rox- 
bury nearly sixty years. His meeting-house 
was on the hill where the present meeting-house 
of the First Church in Roxbury (unitarian) 
now stands. Cotton Mather has preserved an 
anecdote connected with this hill, illustrating the 
art which Mr. Eliot had at spiritualizing. Go- 
ing up the hill to his meeting-house, in his old 
age, with much feebleness and weariness he 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 49 

said to the one who led him, *' This is very like 
the way to heaven, 'tis up hill ; the Lord by his 
grace fetch us up." Spying- a bush near him 
he instantly added, " And truly there are thorns 
and briars in the way too ! " which instance, 
Mather says, " I would not have singled out 
from the many thousands of his occasional re- 
flections, but only that I might suggest unto the 
good people of Roxbury something for them to 
think upon when they are going up to the house 
of the Lord."^ 

In February of the year after his arrival, Mr. 
Eliot is mentioned as one of the company who, 
with the governor, made an excursion into the 
vicinity of Boston, and discovered a pond to 
which they gave its present name of " Spot 
Pond."t This pond has of late been a promi- 
nent candidate for the privilege of supplying this 
city with water. 

In 1632, Mr. Eliot was married to the pious 
yoling lady to whom he was betrothed in Eng- 
land, and who came to America by appointment 
the year after Mr. Eliot's arrival. We shall 
have occasion to speak of her in the sequel of 
this history. 

In the exercise of the Christian ministry, Mr. 



# Mag. B. III. Life of Eliot. Art. L 

t Sparks' Lib. Am. Biog. V. 9. Francis' Life of Eliot. 

VOL. in. 5 



50 LIPE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Eliot was remarkable for a deep sense of the great 
responsibleness of his work. It made him hum- 
ble ; he seemed to have a peculiar fear of the 
temptations incident to his profession, and to be 
deeply impressed with the weight of its duties. 
His brethren in the ministry were struck with 
this characteristic of his ministerial deportment. 

He bestowed much labor and diligence upon 
his preparations for the pulpit. It is said that 
when he listened to a discourse which seemed 
to have had care and attention bestowed upon it, 
he was accustomed to express his approbation 
and thanks to the preacher. But while his dis- 
courses showed him to be a student, he placed a 
higher value on spiritual gifts in preaching than 
upon the greatest accomplishments of art or labor. 
He frequently exhorted young preachers to make 
Christ prominent in their discourses and in all 
their ministrations. 

He had an elevated sense of the meaning and 
privilege of church-membership. With affection, 
but also with plain and faithful words, he never 
ceased to rebuke the inconsislencies of profes- 
sors of religion. Mather says of him, "He 
would sound the trumpet of God against all vice 
with a most penetrating liveliness, and make his 
pulpit another Mount Sinai, for the flashes of 
lightning therein displayed against the breaches 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 51 

of the law given from that burning- mountain. 
There was usually a special fervor in the rebukes 
which he bestowed on carnality. When he was 
to brand the earthly mindedness of Church mem- 
bers and the allowance and indulgence which 
they often give themselves in sensual delights, 
he was a right Boanerges. He spoke as many 
thunderbolts as words !" 

He paid particular attention to the young peo- 
ple of his charge, gave them instruction in public 
and private with the help of catechisms com- 
posed by him especially for their use. It was 
his familiar habit, when he visited a family, to 
call the young around him and lay his hands on 
their heads with words of kindness and prayer. 

He showed his love of learning in his zeal for 
the establishment of common schools. The 
grammar School at Roxbury owed much to his 
care. At the meeting of a Synod in Boston, he 
made the schools of the country a special subject 
of prayer, beseeching God that he would cause 
them to be established everywhere, that schools 
might flourish, that every member of the Synod 
might go home to procure and encourage a good 
school in his town ; and that before they should 
die, they might be so happy as to see a good 
school established in every part of the country. 

" God so blessed his endeavors that Roxbury 



62 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

could not live quietly without a free school in 
the town, and the issue of it has been one thing 
that has almost made me put the title of Schola 
Illustris upon that little nursery; that is, that 
Roxbury has afforded more scholars first for the 
College and then for the public than any town 
of its bigness, or, if I mistake not, of twice its 
bigness in all New England. From the spring 
of the school at Roxbury, there have run a large 
number of the streams which have made glad 
the whole city of God. I persuade myself that 
the good people of Roxbury will forever scorn to 
begrudge the cost, or to permit the death of a 
school which God has made such an honor to 
them ; and thus the rather because their deceased 
Eliot has left them a fair part of his own es- 
tate for the maintaining of the school in Rox- 
bury ; and I hope, or at least I wish that the 
ministers of New England may be as ungainsay- 
ably importunate with their people as Mr. Eliot 
was with his for schools which may seasonably 
tinge the young souls of the rising generation. 
A want of education for them is the blackest and 
saddest of all the bad omens that are upon us."^ 
One result of his interest in schools \\as that 
many individuals were raised up under his eye 

♦ 3Ia5. BuukIII.,499. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 53 

who became ministers of the gospel, and some 
of them were eminently useful. 

He was so engrossed in the affairs of his min- 
istry that he hardly paid sufficient attention to 
his worldly affairs, never being anxious about 
hi,s support, depending wholly on the temporary 
and voluntary offerings of his people, which va- 
ried with the times. Dr. Dwight, in his Travels 
in New England and New York,^ relates 
an anecdote to illustrate his generous and 
somewhat improvident disposition and habits. 
•' The parish treasurer having paid him his sal- 
ary, put it into a handkerchief, and tied it into 
as many hard knots as he could make to pre- 
vent him from giving it away before he reached 
his own house. On his way he called on a poor 
family, and told them^that he had brought them 
some relief He then began to untie the knots, 
but finding it a work of great difficulty, he gave 
It to the mistress of the house, saying, "Here, 
my dear, take it, I believe the Lord designs it 
all for you." 

Like many other ministers, he owed much to 
the care which his wife took of him and his 
worldly affairs. She of course did not commend 
him for such reckless acts of charity as the one 
just named. One day some cattle stood before 
* Vol. m., p. 15. 
5# 



64 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

theif door. His wife, to try him, asked him to 
whom they belonged, and though they were his 
own, he did not know them. 

His influence upon liis brethren in the minis- 
try seems to have been eminently spiritual. He 
once said in a company of them, "The Lord 
Jesus takes much notice of what is said and done 
among his ministers when they are together. 
Let us pray before we depart.'' His advice to 
some who complained of the conduct of Church 
members towards them, was, " Bear, forbear, 
forgive." On one occasion he came into a 
meeting of ministers who had met as referees on 
some difficulties between two parties. A large 
bundle of papers lay on the table, containing the 
correspondence and other documents relating to 
the quarrel. He put them all into the fire, and 
said, " You need not be astonished at what I 
have done, for I did it on my knees before I 
came here." 

He loved to attend upon the ministry of his 
brethren when they lectured during the week. 
It used to excite surprise, that, with his many 
labors and studies, he could find so much time 
to do this. His appearance in the house of God 
as a hearer was noticeable, being always wake- 
ful and watchful, turning the pages of a Bible 
to find the texts referred to by the preacher, and 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 55 

on returning to his home, he would preach the 
sermon over again to those who walked with 
him. 

He is mentioned as remarkable for the value 
which he seemed to set on the Sabbath, and for 
the high spiritual enjoyment which its return 
brought with it. Of every Sabbath it might 
almost be said with regard to his enjoyment of the 
sacred hours, " That Sabbath was a high-day." 

He was eminently a man of prayer, setting 
apart whole days for special supplication and 
communion with God, to which he frequently 
added fasting. When he had any special diffi- 
culty in his private, or in public affairs, he de- 
voted himself to special, secret prayer for some 
time together, on the principle related of another, 
'* That when we would have any great things to 
be accomplished, the best policy is to work by 
an engine which the world sees nothing of." 
\ When he heard any special news he would 
sometimes say, " Brethren, let us turn all this 
into prayer." When he paid a visit to a family 
with which he w^as familiar, he would sometimes 
say, " Come, let us not have a visit without a 
prayer ; let us pray down the blessing of heaven 
on your family before we go." 

A pious woman, afflicted with a wicked hus- 
band, complained to him that she was greatly 



66 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

troubled by the bad company which her husband 
brought with him into the house, and asked him 
what slic should do. He said to her, " Take the 
lioly Bible into your hands when they come, and 
you will soon drive them away." The experi- 
ment is said to have been successful. 

One day walking in his garden with a friend, 
he began to pluck up the weeds. His friend 
pleasantly said to him, '* Sir, you tell us we 
must be heavenly-minded," as though he would 
draw from Mr. Eliot some remarks on the con- 
sistency of heavenly-mindedness with attention 
10 things about us. Mr. Eliot replied, *' It is 
true ; and this is no impediment unto that ; for 
were I sure to go to heaven tomorrow, I would 
do what I do to-day." 

He went into a merchant's counting room, 
where he saw his mercantile books on the table, 
and some books of devotion on the shelf. Upon 
which he said, " Sir, here is earth on the table, 
and Heaven on the shelf. Pray don't sit so 
much at the table as altogether to forget the 
shelf." 

Preaching once on holiness in all manner of 
conversation, he said, " In the morning if we 
ask. Where am I to be to-day ? our souls must 
answer, In heaven. In the evening if we ask, 
Where have I been to-day, our souls may answer, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 57 

In heaven. If thou art a believer thou art no 
stranger to Heaven while thou livest; and when 
thou diest, Heaven will be no strange place to 
thee: no, thou hast been there a thousand times 
before." 

He would say to students, " I pray look to it 
that you be morning birds." 

A few years before his death, he pressed his 
people to obtain another pastor, and said, " 'Tis 
possible you may think the burden of maintain- 
ing two ministers may be two heavy for you ; 
but I deliver you from that fear; I do here give 
back my salary to the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
now, brethren, you may fix that upon any man 
that God shall make a pastor for you." But his 
Church kindly and generously told him that they 
should count his very presence worth a salary, 
when he should be so supifennuated as to do no 
further service for them. 

He was an abstemious man, and yet far from 
being morose or censorious, but when invited to 
a large dinner, it is said that while he eat but 
very little he would indulge in pleasant and 
grateful remarks with respect to the plenty with 
which God had furnished his people in this 
wilderness. Having been invited at a stranger's 
house to take some drink, which he was told 
was wine and water, he replied, "Wine ! 'tis a 



58 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 



noble, generous liquor, and we should be humbly 
thankful for ii ; but, as I remember, water was 
made before it," and water was his drink, to a 
degree which was far from being common even 
in those days. 

He was greatly displeased with the increasing 
attention in his day among the men to the wear- 
ing of the hair, the length of it growing to ef- 
feminacy, and false hair frequently being added, 
when there was no necessity for it to cover the 
head. He finally despaired of changing or 
checking the custom, and said, *' The lust is be- 
come insuperable." 

It is said of him that no man ever had fewer 
enemies than he, but still there were those who 
privately disliked him, and he charged his wife 
in her visits among the people to do good in a 
special manner to al|Hwhom she found disposed 
to speak against him, or to entertain unkind 
feelings towards him. Having once displeased 
a hearer by something in a sermon, the man 
abused him publicly by words and by printing 
something to his injury. The man soon after 
was wounded. Mrs. Eliot had considerable 
skill in medicine and the treatment of wounds, 
and Mr. Eliot sent her to cure the man, which 
she did, and upon his recovery the man called 
to thank her, but she took no reward, and Mr. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 59 

Eliot kept him to dine, and took no notice of his 
evil conduct, whereupon the man was deeply 
affected and subdued. 

He had much tact and wit in suiting his ben- 
edictions to the conditions and circumstances of 
different people. 

In the days of affliction he showed exemplary 
resignation to the will of God. He followed to 
the grave two or three of his sons, who were 
ministers of the Gospel. But his patience and 
submission under these trials are spoken of with 
great commendation. 

His love for the Hebrew tongue is seen in the 
foUowins: enthusiastic words : " O that the Lord 
would put it into the heart of some of his relig- 
ious and learned servants to take such pains 
about the Hebrew language as to fit it for uni- 
versal use ! Consideri^^piat above all lan- 
guages spoken by the lip of man, it is most 
capable to be enlarged, and fitted to express all 
things, and motions, and notions that our human 
intellect is capable of in this mortal life, consid- 
ering also that it is the invention of God himself; 
and what one is fitter to be the universal lan- 
guage, than that which it pleased our Lord Jesus 
to make use of when he spake from heaven unto 
Paul !" 

In the government of his family, it is said 



60 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

that there might have been seen a perpetual 
mixture of a Spartan and a Christian discipline, 
and that whatever decay there might have been 
in family religion generally, the people * knew 
how that he would command his children and 
his household after him, that they should keep 
the way of the Lord.' 

He was remarkable for the efforts he em- 
ployed to instruct the children, making catechisms 
for them having reference to any prevailing er- 
rors. The effect of this is certified in a remark 
of Cotton Mather, that it is a well-principled 
people that he has left behind him. " As when 
certain Jesuits were sent among the Waldenses 
to corrupt their children, they returned with 
much disappointment and confusion, because the 
children of seven j^cars old were well-principled 
enough to encout^^fche most learned of them 
all ; so, if any sedWers were let loose to wolve 
it among the good people of Roxbury, I am con- 
fident they would find as little prey in that well 
instructed place as in any part of the country. 
No civil penalties would signify so much to save 
any people from the snares of busy heretics, as 
the unwearied catechising of our Eliot has done 
to preserve his people from the gangrene of ill 
opinion."* 



♦ Book III. An. IV. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 61 

It is said of Mr. Eliot that he was not only an 
evangelical minister, but a Protestant and a Pu- 
ritan. " He was a modest, humble, but very 
reasonable non-conformist unto the ceremonies 
which have been such unhappy apples of strife 
in the Church of England ; otherwise the dismal 
thickets of America had never seen such a per- 
son in them." 

Mr. Eliot was strongly attached to the Con- 
gregational form of Church order. He spoke of 
it as the special gift of Christ to his people who 
followed him into the wilderness with an earnest 
zeal for communion with Him in a pure worship. 
He regarded Congregationalism as a happy me- 
dium to "rigid Presbyterianism" on the one 
hand, and " leveling Brownism " on the other, 
the liberties of the people not being disregarded, 
nor the authority of th^Blders rendered in- 
significant, but a due balance kept between them 
both. He regarded the Platform of Church Dis- 
cipline " as being the nearest of what he had yet 
seen to the directions of heaven." 

By this it is not to be understood that Mr. 
Eliot as a true Congregationalist, supposed that 
any form of Church government was imposed 
by Christ or the Apostles upon the Christian 
Church, as being in any way essential to the 
existence of a true Church of Christ. With re- 

VOL. III. 6 



62 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 



gard to the appointment of any special form of 
Church Government, it would seem that there is 
a wise silence in the New Testament. The 
genius of Christianity forbids an adherence to 
any form of ecclesiastical order as essential to 
the existence of a Church of Christ. This truth 
was aeclared by Christ at Jacob's well to the 
Samaritan woman. The Jews insisted on Je- 
rusalem as the place where men ought to wor- 
ship. The Samaritans as strenuously maintained 
that acceptable worship could be performed only 
in their mountain. 

Christ said, The hour cometh when ye shall 
neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem 
worship the Father ; that is, no place in prefer- 
ence to another shall be essential to acceptable 
worship. God is a Sp irit, and they that worship 
him need not reslr^Hhemselves to any hallowed 
place, but may womiip him any where accepta- 
bly, if they worship Him in spirit and in truth. 

But if so great a change was allowed as the 
abolition of sacred places, which once were es- 
sential to acceptable worship, and notwithstand- 
ing all that had been done to make men feel that 
Jerusalem and the Temple were the places to 
which the true worshipers must of necessity re- 
sort, it follows that no forms, any more than 
places, are essential to the true worship of God. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 63 

We may infer what form of Church government 
prevailed under the Apostles, though different 
readers of the New Testament will draw difTer- 
ent inferences. This shows that no form is 
prescribed as being essential, otherwise we should 
not have been left in the dark in so important a 
subject. The body of Moses and the place of 
his sepulchre were hidden, because as we gen- 
erally suppose the Israelites would have paid an 
idolatrous reverence before such a shrine as the 
tomb of their illustrious leader, and in the Jew- 
ish Church the solemn farce of a Holy Sepulchre 
would have been enacted, in anticipation and in 
countenance of the subsequent follies which have 
been connected with the Sepulchre of Christ. 
We may say of any supposed form of Church 
government as being in any way essential, as is 
said of the body of Moses, and for a similar 
reason, " The Lord buried it," and " no man 
knoweth of its sepulchre to this day." 

Our preference for the Congregational form 
of Church government is not properly founded 
on any prescriptions in the New Testament, but 
on our convictions that this form is most accord- 
ant with the genius of Christianity and of repub- 
lican institutions. But so surely as we insist 
on Congregationalism as having any " divine 
right," or authority, and we seek to propagate 



64 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Congregationalism with such convictions, we are 
as surely High Churchmen and Puseyites as 
can any where be found. To insist on the ab- 
sence of all forms and on the perfect simplicity 
of worship, with a sectarian spirit, shows as great 
an attachment to a form of worship as though 
we urged the adoption of all the ceremonies of 
the Cathedral. We may be as bigoted in favor 
of simplicity as of any thing else, and a Quaker 
and a Congregationalist may be as much a for- 
malist and a Churchman as any other. At the 
same time we may believe that the Congrega- 
tional form of government is nearer to the Spirit 
of the New Testament than any other, and this 
is what Mr. Eliot probably meant when he said 
that Congregationalism was nearest in his view 
to the directions of heaven. 

The influence which was exerted upon the 
mind of Thomas Jefferson, and which he exerted 
in the framing of the Constitution, by observing, 
as he did, an illustration of democracy in a Con- 
gregational Baptist Church in Virginia, is well 
known. ^ 

We ought to carry out the true Puritan doc- 
trine of liberty of conscience by not despising 
any who choose to worship under a different 
form and order from our own. It is an interest- 
ing illustration of the noble spirit in our Puritan 

♦ Jefferson's " Notes on Virginia." 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 65 

institutions that all sects have liberty here to 
worship God with any forms or in any man- 
ner they please ; and he who tries to hinder 
ihem any further than by convincing them, or 
feels sourly towards them in the enjoyment of 
their liberty of conscience and religious prefer- 
ences, has not yet learned all that he may of the 
nature and spirit of religious liberty. But if we 
profess to be in the true succession from the Pu- 
ritans and Pilgrims as to doctrine and Church 
order, let us not mix any of those things with 
our worship from which the Pilgrims fled to 
this wilderness, that they might be rid of them. 
We can live peaceably and freely in the midst 
of such corruptions and not be persecuted. 
They could not. Let us not abuse our liberty, 
by turning again to those beggarly elements of 
human appointments in Church government and 
worship which corrupt the religion of Christ. 
Let us not begin to do so by cultivating the 
spirit of bigoted attachment to our simple order 
and forms, for thereby we as truly violate the 
spirit of Christianity as though we insisted on a 
multitude of ceremonies and a hierarchy, as es- 
sential to a Church. He who says " No Church 
without simplicity in worship," and he who 
says, " No Church without a Bishop," are two 
extremes which meet. At the same time, we 
6# 



66 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

shall be the degenerate sons of men who made 
such sacrifices for purity in worship as did the 
Pilgrims, unless we adhere to our simple and 
beautiful mode of Church g-ovcrnment and wor- 
ship as preferable to any other. 

The practice of examining persons who seek 
admission to the Church, was much insisted on 
by Mr. Elioi. The relation of their experience 
he says, " is an ordinance of w^onderful benefit. 
The devil knows what he does when he thrusts 
so hard to get this custom out of our churches. 
For my part I would say in this case, Get thee 
behind me Satan ; thou givest an horrible ofl^ence 
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us keep up this 
ordinance with all gentleness ; and where we 
see the least spark of grace held forth, let us 
prize it more than all the wit in the world." 

Mr. Eliot had six children, a daughter and 
five sons. The daughter became exemplary for 
her piety and matronly deportment. His first 
son, John, was " a lively, zealous, acute preach- 
er, not only to the English at New Cambridge,^ 



* Newion. Dr. Homer, in his History of Newton says, " This 
son of the apostle Eliot was the first minister of Newton. His abili- 
lies and occupation in the ministry are said to be pre-eminent. 
Under the direction of his father, he obtained considerable profi- 
ciency in the Indian language, and was an assistant to him in the 
missionary employment, until he settled at Newion. Even after his 
ordination there, he imitated the manner of his father, devoting him- 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 67 

but also to the Indians thereabout." He died 
early, and upon his death-bed uttered many 
remarkable things. The third child, Joseph, 
was pastor of the Church in Guilford, Conn. 
The fourth child, Samuel, was a candidate for 
the ministry, but died young. The fifth was 
Aaron, who also died very young. The last 
was Benjamin, who became his father's assistant 
in the ministry at Roxbury, but died before his 
father. Of these six children, Mr. Eliot said, 
" They are all EixftER with Christ, or in 
Christ." 

Mather speaks of the singular and surprising 
successes of Mr. Eliot's prayers ; ' for they were 
such that in our distresses we still repaired to 
him under that encouragement.' "He is a pro- 
phet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt 
live." He mentions the following fact. They 
who are displeased at David's imprecations 
against his enemies, may see in it that a good man 
may pray for the destruction of the incorrigibly 
wicked, when great and good ends will be accom- 
plished by it, leaving it submissively to the 
appointments of the all-wise God. A good man 
never ventures to pray in this manner, except 



self to the instruction of the Indians, as well as his own flock. Ac- 
cordingly he preached statedly once in a fortnight to them at Pe- 
quiraet, (Sloughton.) and sometimes at Natick." 



68 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

when he is under a strong influence, drawing 
him very near lo God with lioly freedom and 
boldness. At such times his feelings are em- 
inently pure ; and it is in such times that good 
men feci impelled to pray for the removal of 
those who oppose God, and hinder others in 
their salvation. No doubt if there were more of 
ardent piety, there would be more of righteous 
indignation against the obstinate opposers of 
religion, and we should find ourselves better 
able to understand the filings and language of 
David, when praying against the enemies of his 
throne and of the God who ruled by him. 
That language will come into more familiar use 
by the people of God, in their nearest approach- 
es to him, as they go forth with their King and 
Saviour in his conflicts with his enemies. 

The fact to which the allusion has been made 
was this : 

There was a pious gentleman of Charlestown 
by the name of Foster, who, with his son, M^as 
taken prisoner by the Turks. The news being 
spread in this vicinity, the good people offered 
up many prayers for his deliverance. But it 
was reported that the prince, within whose au- 
thority he was a prisoner, had resolved that 
during his reign, no captive should be set free. 
The friends and acquaintances of this man then 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 69 

concluded that his captivity was hopeless. Soon 
after, Mr. Eliot on some public and solemn 
occasion, used these direct and forcible petitions. 
*' Heavenly Father ! work forth deliverance of 
thy poor servant, Foster; and if the prince 
which detains him, will not, as they say, dismiss 
him so long as himself lives, Lord, we pray thee 
to kill that cruel prince ; kill him, and glorify 
thyself upon him." Soon after the prisoners 
returned and brought news that in consequence 
of the untimely death of the prince they had 
been set at liberty. 

There was one thing which seems to have 
pressed very heavily on the mind and heart of 
Mr. Eliot in his ministerial office. It was the 
care of a Church. " He looked upon it," says 
one, " as a thing no less dangerous than impor- 
tant, and attended with so many difficulties, 
temptations, and humiliations, as that nothing 
but a call from the Son of God could have en- 
couraged him unto the susception of it. He 
saw that it was no easy thing to feed the souls 
of such a people, to bear their manners with all 
patience, not being by any of their infirmities 
discouraged from teaching of them, and from 
watching and praying over them, to value them 
highly as the flock of God, which he hath pur- 
chased with his own blood, notwithstanding all 



70 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

their miscarriages, and in all to examine the 
rule of Scripture for the warrant of whatever 
shall be done, and to remember the day of 
judgement wherein an account must be given of 
whatever shall be done, having in the mean- 
time no expectation of the riches and grandeurs 
which accompany a worldly domination." This 
seemed to be characteristic of the spirit with 
which Mr. Eliot discharged his duties as the 
pastor of a Church. 

An observation of Rev. Samuel Ward has 
been quoted as applicable to him : " In observing 
I have observed and found that divers great 
clerks have had but little fruit of their ministry, 
but hardly any truly zealous men of God, though 
of lesser gifts, but have had much comfort of 
their labors in their own and bordering parishes, 
being in this likened by Gregory to the iron on 
the smith's anvil, sparkling round about." 

Mather says, " The Lord Jesus Christ was 
the load-stone which gave a touch to all the 
sermons of our Eliot ; a glorious, precious, love- 
ly Christ, was the point of heaven to which they 
still verged unto." It is said, that though he 
printed many books or pamphlets, his heart 
seemed to be in none of them so much, as in 
his ' Harmony of the Gospels, in the holy History 
of Jesus Christ.' It was a standing piece of 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 71 

advice with him to young ministers, *' Pray let 
there be much of Christ in your ministry." On 
hearing a sermon in which the Saviour had been 
made prominent, he would say, O, blessed be 
God, that we hear Christ so much and so well 
preached in poor New England. 

On coming out of the meeting-house where he 
had been listening to a sermon, he said to the 
preacher, " Brother, there was oil required for 
the service of the sanctuary ; but it must be 
beaten oil ; I praise God that I saw your oil so 
well beaten to-day ; the Lord help us always by 
good study to beat our oil that there may be no 
knots in our sermons left undissolved, and that 
there may a clear light be thereby given in the 
house of God." Still it is observed that he looked 
for something more than mere study in a ser- 
mon ; he required those things in it which 
would make the hearer feel that the Spirit of God 
was in the sermon and with the preacher, and he 
was once heard to complain, "It is a sad thing 
when a sermon shall have that one thing, The 
Spirit of God, wanting in it." 

He had eminently spiritual views of the duty 
and privilege of infant baptism. On giving the 
Rev. Cotton Mather the Right Hand of Fellow- 
ship at his ordination, he said to him, " Brother, 
art thou a lover of the Lord Jesus Christ ? 



72 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Then I pray, feed his lambs." He was careful 
to have the lambs pass under the " Lord's 
tything rod." One Mr. Norcott, a truly pious 
man, published a book against the baptism of 
infants, which being circulated in Boston and 
the vicinity, Mr. Eliot answered it in a brief pub- 
lication, beginning with these words : " The 
book speaks with the voice of a lamb, and I 
think the author is a godly though erring bro- 
ther ; but he acts the cause of a roaring lion, 
who by all crafty ways, seeketh to devour the 
poor lambs of the flock of Christ." He then 
speaks " in the behalf of those who cannot 
speak for themselves." 

On one occasion, speaking of the Saviour's 
directions to Peter, John 21 : 15, he observed. 
That the care of the lavibs is one third 'part of 
the charge over the house of God. 

The title of one of Mr. Eliot's publications, 
" The Divine Management of Gospel Churches, 
by the Ordinance of Councils, constituted in 
order according to the Scriptures, which may 
be a means of uniting those two holy and emi- 
nent parties, the Presbyterians and the Congre- 
gational," shows that a plan of union between 
these two sister denominations is not wholly of 
modern origin. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 73 

But reserving many things respecting Mr. 
Eliot's character and opinions for another place 
in this book, let us now look at him in that re- 
markable work to which God appointed him 
among the Indians of this vicinity. 



VOL. m. 



74 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 



CHAPTER IV. 

Nonantum. Mather's description of the natives. The Lost Tribes 
of Israel. Specimen of Indian words. Eliot's first religious exer- 
cise at Nonantum. Indian Questions. Second visit to the Indians. 
Indian Questions. Eliot's reflections on his interviews. Anecdotes. 

The old turnpike road to "Worcester, in Bright- 
on, leaves Nonantum hill on the left, and a 
private road conducts to the summit of the 
hill which is crowned by two mansions."^ The 
scenery from that hill has a rare combination of 
still life and of the busy world. The Charles Riv- 
er, seen from a distant part of the hill, meanders 
to the sea ; the quiet, classic scenes of Cambridge 
are before the eye ; soft undulations of hill and 
dale, winding roads and aboriginal woods, and 
the quiet waters of the estuary, impress the 
mind with sensations of repose which are pleas- 
antly broken by the distant noise of travel upon 
the bridges, the sudden whistle of the locomo- 
tive, and an impressive view of the neighboring 
city. That hill, extending as far as Watertown, 
and Newton, was once the favorite residence of 



♦ Now owned and occupied by Warren Dutton and Horace Gray, 
Eaqrs. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 75 

the Indians, in this vicinity,"^ and thither Eliot, 
the pastor of the neighboring Church in Kox- 
bury, directed his way, to give the Indians the 
word and ordinances of the Gospel in their own 
language. 

Cotton Mather says, " The natives of the 
country now possessed by the New Englanders, 
had been forlorn and wretched heathen ever 
since their first herding here ; and though we 
know not how these Indians first became inhab- 
itants of this mighty continent, yet we may 
guess that probably the devil decoyed these 
miserable savages hither, in hopes that the gos- 
pel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ would 
never come here to destroy or disturb his abso- 
lute empire over them. But our Eliot was in 
such ill-terms with the devil, as to alarm him by 
sounding the silver trumpets of heaven in his 
territories, and make some noble and zealous 
attempt towards, ousting him of his ancient pos- 
sessions here. There were, I think, twenty 



* "The first place he began to preach at was Nonantum, near 
Walertown, upon the south side of Charles River, about four or five 
miles from his own house ; where lived at that time, Wabon, one of 
their principal men, and some Indians with him." Gookin, Mass. 
Hist. Soc. Coll. for 1792, Vol. I. 

" The place where Eliot first began to preach to the Indians, was 
at Nonantum, a hill at the northeast corner of Newton, nearly where 
Messrs. Haven's and Wiggin's houses now stand." Moore's Lif 
of Eliot. 



76 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

several nations, if I may call them so, of Indians, 
upon that spot of g^round which fell under the 
influence of our Three United Colonies ; and 
our Eliot was willing to rescue as many of 
them as he could from that old usurping land- 
lord of America, who is, by the wrath of God, 
the prince of this world. "^ 

Some of the interest and zeal which many of 
the first planters and their successors felt with 
regard to the Indians, was owing to their belief 
that they were the Ten Tribes of Israel. Cotton 
Mather enumerates " some small reasons," as he 
calls them, which led the English to suspect 
that they might be Israelites. He adds, " They 
have, too, a great unkindness for our swine;" — 
but he does not seem to place much reliance on 
that coincidence with the Jewish antipathy to 
swine, for he adds, "but I suppose that is be- 
cause our swine devour their clams, which are 
a great dainty with them." 

This supposition that the North American In- 
dians are the Ten Tribes of Israel, has seemed 
even more probable to many modern writers 
than it did to the first settlers of the country. 
Mr. Catlin, in his interesting and valuable work 
on the North American Indians, mentions many 
curious facts in the history, manners and cus- 

♦ Mag. Book III., Part IV. See Appendix, C. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 77 

toms of the present race of red men, in favor of 
this supposition. But there are so many theo- 
ries on the subject of the Lost Tribes of Israel, 
and it is so easy for an ingenious mind to dis- 
cover or invent resemblances, that neither this 
theory nor any other on the same subject has 
ever obtained general belief. 

It was to a people of rude speech and fierce 
countenance that Mr. Eliot endeavored to give a 
knowledge of the Gospel and the institutions of 
civilized life. His first labor of course was to 
acquire their language. It was the language of 
the Massachusetts Indians to which he applied 
himself. He found an old Indian who could 
speak English, took him into his family, and by 
finding out one Avord, and expression, and sen- 
tence after another, he soon was able to converse 
in that tongue, and finally understood it so well 
that he reduced it to rules, and made an Indian 
grammar. One glance at this language will 
show that it must have been no easy task for a 
stranger to learn it well enough to converse in 
it. Some of the words are of enormous length, 
one of them sometimes filling a whole line. 
The word for "our loves," is noowoomantam- 
moorkanunornash. " Our question" is Kum- 
mogkodonnattootummooetiteaongannunnarash. 

" One would think," says Mather, " that these 
7# 



78 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 

words had been growing ever since Babel unto 
the dimensions to which they are now extended." 
Another remark of his on this subject, though it 
may seem to us to be somewhat in a trifling 
mood, was undoubtedly written with sober feel- 
ings, considering the prevalent superstitions of 
those times — superstitions with regard to which 
we greatly err if we suppose them to have been, in 
those times, peculiar to America. "^ "I know not," 
this writer adds, " what thoughts it will produce 
in my reader, when I inform him that once finding 
that the demons in a possessed young woman 
understood the Latin and Greek and Hebrew 
languages, my curiosity led me to make trial of 
this Indian language, and the demons did seem 
as if they did not understand it." 

The reason of the great length of these Indian 
words is understood to be, that instead of having 
separate words for pronouns and adjectives, the 
noun or verb expresses them by adding syllables 
to itself. Mather, who was ready at anagrams 
and puns, says that the name Eliot read back- 
wards, is t o i I E, and he thinks that the name 
corresponds well with the toil of reducing such 
a language to a grammar. At the close of his 
Grammar Eliot wrote these words : " Prayers 

* He who thinks that a belief ia witchcraft, &c., was a peculiarity 
of New England, should look into Strype's Ecclesiaatical Memorials. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 79 



and pains through faith in Christ Jesus, will do 
any thing." 

We have from Eliot's own pen a narrative, 
called *' A true relation of our beginnings with 
the Indians." It was published in London, in 
1647, under this title, " The Day breaking, if not 
the Sun-rising, of the Gospel, with the Indians 
in New England." 

In October, 1646, Eliot, with a few others, 
having sought the blessing of God, went to No- 
nantum, for the purpose, as he says, of making 
known to the Indians the things of their peace. 
As they approached the wigwams, five or six of 
the Chiefs met them with English salutations 
and bid them welcome. The principal wigwam 
had been previously prepared for the meeting, 
and many of the Indians were assembled. Eliot 
and his companions then began with prayer in 
the English language, not being sufficiently ac- 
quainted with the Indian tongue to make suita- 
ble religious impressions at first with it upon the 
minds of the Indians, and besides they wished 
to Jet the Indians see that they felt the duty in 
hand to be serious and sacred, and they had a 
desire, moreover, as missionaries to offer up a 
united supplication to God, " with the same re- 
quest and heart sorrowes," in that place where 
God was never wont to be called upon. 



80 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

It Tvas an aflfecting sight, as we may suppose, 
to Eliot and his friends, when they ceased from 
prayer and looked upon the company of Indians 
sitting in silence, with a mixture of curiosity 
and seriousness and wildness in their faces. To 
such an audience Eliot preached in the Indian 
tongue from Ezekiel 37 : 9. " Prophesy, son 
of man, and say to the wind. Thus saith the 
Lord, Come from the four winds, O breath, and 
breathe upon these slain that they may live." 

It is a curious fact that the name of the man^ 
in whose wigwam they were assembled was 
Waban, and Waban is the Indian name for the 
wind, so that it seemed to Waban that the mes- 
sage was sent to him, and it proved a means in 
his conversion. The text from which Mr. Eliot 
preached on this occasion, was not one which 
his hearers could at first understand, and there- 
fore some have expressed surprise at the selec- 
tion of it. But in reply to this, it may be asked, 
what passage of the Word of God would have 
been immediately intelligible to those ignorant 
hearers ? Besides, the text seems to have been 
chosen by Mr. Eliot for a purpose which is cer- 
tainly proper on special occasions, viz , as a 
warrant and encourairement to his own soul and 



* He waa not a Sachem, as frequenlly slated. See Mass. Hist., 
Col. IV., 19. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 81 

that of his helpers, in preaching in that valley 
of dry bones. Yet, after suitable religious im- 
pressions had been made, and the hearers had 
felt their lost and wretched state, and their need 
of divine power, in reflecting upon the text it 
must have seemed to the hearers peculiarly ap- 
propriate to the occasion and to their condition. 

An hour and a quarter was occupied in the 
discourse. Mr. Eliot gave the Indians first a 
brief exposition of the ten commandments, show- 
ing the wrath and curse of God against those 
who break the least one of them. The subject 
was then applied, and the law having been 
brought to do its work in their hearts, and their 
sins being pointed out to them, as Mr. Eliot 
says, with much sweet affection, Jesus Christ 
was preached to them as the only Saviour. He 
told them who Christ was, and what he did, and 
whither he had gone, and how he will come 
again to judge the wicked and burn the world. 
The creation and fall of man, the greatness of 
God, heaven and hell, the pleasures of religion 
and the miseries of sin were then explained in 
language and with illustrations suited to their 
capacity. 

The sermon being finished, Mr. Eliot pro- 
posed some questions to them, and first inquired 
whether they understood what had been said, 



82 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

and whether all or only some of them understood 
it ? A multitude of voices exclaimed that they 
all understood every thing which had been spo- 
ken. Leave w^as then granted them to put 
questions, and it is interesting to notice the first 
questions which these children of the wilderness 
proposed. The first questions were, 

•' WTiat is the cause of thunder ?" 

" What makes the sea ebb and flow ?" 

" What makes the wind blow ?" 

Bat there were some questions proposed by 
them which Mr. Eliot says some special wisdom 
of God directed them to ask, as, for example, 

Hovj may we come to knmo Jesus Christ ? 

Mr. Eliot told them that if they could read 
the Bible they would see clearly who Jesus 
Christ is, but inasmuch as they could not then 
read, he desired them to remember what he had 
told them out of the Bible, and to think much 
and often upon it, when they lay down on their 
mats in their wigwams and when they rose up, 
and to go alone in the fields, and woods, and 
muse on it, and so God would teach them. 

He told them that if they would have help 
from God in this thing, they must begin to pray, 
and though they could not make long prayers as 
the English did, yet if they did but sigh and 
groan, saying, " Lord, mal^e me to know Jesus 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. S3 

Christ for I know him not," and if with all their 
hearts they persisted in such prayers, they might 
hope that God would help them. But they were 
especially to remember that they must confess 
their sins and ignorance to God and mourn over 
them and acknowledge how just it would be in 
God to withhold from them any knowledge of 
Christ, on account of their sins. 

This instruction was communicated to them 
by Mr. Eliot through the Indian interpreter 
whom he had brought with him, but he says he 
was struck with the fact that a few words from 
the Preacher had much greater effect than many 
from the interpreter. 

One of them asked, whether Englishmen were 
ever at any time so ignorant of God and Jesus 
Christ as they themselves ? 

Another put this question : Whether if the 
father be naught and the child good, will God be 
offended with that child ? because in the second 
commandment it is said that he visits the sins 
of the fathers upon the children. 

They were told in reply to this that every 
child who is good will not be punished for the 
sins of his father, but if the child be bad, God 
would then visit his father's sins upon him, and 
they were bid to notice that part of the second 
commandment which contains a promise to the 



84 LIFE^OF JOHN ELIOT. 

thousands of them that love God and keep his 
commandments. 

One of them asked, How is all the world now 
become so full of people, if they were all once 
drowned in the flood ? This led to the story of 
the ark and the preservation of Noah. 

Mr. Eliot then proposed some questions to 
them, for example, Whether they did not desire 
to see God, and were not tempted to think there 
is no God because they could not see him ? 

Some of them answered, They did desire to 
see Him if it could be, but they had heard from 
Mr. Eliot that he could not be seen, and they 
did believe that though their eyes could not see 
him, he was to be seen with their soul within. 

Mr. Eliot endeavored to confirm them in this 
impression, and asked them if they saw a great 
wigwam or a great house, would they think that 
racoons or foxes built it? or would the^ think 
that it made itself? or that no wise builder made 
it, because they could not see him who made it ? 

Knowing that the doctrine of one God was a 
great stumbling block to them, Mr. Eliot asked 
them if they did not think it strange that there 
should be but one God, and yet this God be in 
Massachusetts, and in Connecticut, in Old Eng- 
land, in this wigwam, and the next, and every 
where at the same time ? 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 85 

One of the most sober of them replied that it 
was indeed strange, as every thing else they had 
heard preached was strange, and they were 
wonderful things which they never heard of be- 
fore, but yet they thought " it might be true, and 
that God was so big every where." Mr. Eliot 
illustrated the truth by the light of the sun, 
which, though it was but a creature of God, shed 
its light into that wigwam, and the next, in Mas- 
sachusetts and Old England, at once. 

He inquired of them if they did not find some- 
thing troubling them within after the commission 
of murder, theft, adultery, lying; and what would 
comfort them, and remove that trouble of con- 
science when they should die and appear before 
God? 

They replied that they were thus troubled, 
but they could not tell what they should say 
about it, or what would remove this trouble of 
mind, whereupon Mr. Eliot enlarged upon the 
evil of sin and the condition of the soul which is 
cast out of the favor of God. 

Having spent three hours in this interview, 
Mr. Eliot asked them if they were not weary, 
and they said, no. But thinking it best to leave 
them with an appetite, Mr. Eliot concluded 
the meeting with prayer, but before he departed 
the principal Indian expressed a desire for more 

VOL. III. 8 



86 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

land to build a Town upon, and Mr. Eliot prom- 
ised to speak for them to the General Court, 
" that they might possess all the compass of that 
hill upon which their wigwams then stood." 

In the second visit which Mr. Eliot made to 
the Indians at Nonantum, he began to catechise 
the younger children. He framed three ques- 
tions only, that their memories might not be 
overloaded. The questions and answers were 
these : 

1. Who made you and all the world. Ans. 
God. 

2. Who do you think should save you and 
redeem you from sin and hell ? Ans. Jesus 
Christ. 

3. How many commandments hath God giv- 
en you to keep. Ans. Ten. 

By the time that the questions reached the 
smaller children, they had learned the answers 
perfectly, from hearing the others repeat them, 
and the parents had become familiar with them, 
and they were requested to use this Shorter 
Catechism of three questions, in teaching their 
children, against the next visit. 

The substance of Mr. Eliot's address to the 
Indians on this occasion was this : " We are 
come to bring you good news from the great 
God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, and 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 87 

to tell you how evil and wicked men may come 
to be g^ood, so that while they live they may be 
happy, and when they die may go to God and 
live in heaven." 

He then endeavored to give them just impres- 
sions concerning God, his power, greatness, and 
goodness, his will, what he required of all men, 
even of the Indians, in the ten commandments, 
the dreadful punishment of all who break one of 
these commandments, the anger of God at sin, 
and yet his compassion for sinners in sending 
Christ to die for wicked men. He taught them 
that if they would repent and believe, God would 
love the poor miserable Indians, but that the 
wrath of God would burn against all who neg- 
lected so great salvation as was now offered to 
them by those whose only desire was their sal- 
vation. 

The power of these words was manifestly felt 
by one of the Indians, who at the thought of his 
sins and of the danger to which they exposed 
him, wept aloud, yet without affectation, but 
striving to conceal his emotions. 

Perhaps in no way can we communicate re- 
ligious instruction in a more simple and effectual 
way to the young who may read this book, than 
to record here the questions and answers which 
Mr. Eliot has preserved in his several inter- 



88 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

views with the Indians. Other writers who 
lived at that time have also recorded questions 
and answers which they heard. But it will not 
be necessary to state the limes, or places, or the 
hand by which they were recorded. 

An old man rose up after Mr, Eliot had fin- 
ished his sermon, and asked whether it was not 
too late for such an old man as he, who was 
near death, to repent or seek after God. 

This question aflfected Mr. Eliot and his com- 
panions with compassion. They told him what 
is said in the Bible about those who were hired 
at the eleventh hour, and drew a parallel to 
his case by describing a son who had for very 
many years been disobedient, and afterwards 
penitent, and the feelings of his father towards 
him. 

Question. How came the English to differ 
so much from the Indians in the knowledge of 
God and Jesus Christ, seeing they all had at 
first one father ? 

Question. How may we come to serve God ? 

Question. How comes it to pass that the sea 
water is salt and the land water fresh ? 

Answer. This is one of the wonderful works 
of God. As strawberries are sweet and cran- 
berries sour, by the appointment of God, so was 
it in this case. To this was added some ac- 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 89 

count of natural causes and effects in connection 
with this subject, •' which they less understood, 
yet did understand somewhat, as appeared by 
their usual signs of approving what they under- 
stand." 

Question. If the water is higher than the 
earth, how comes it to pass that it doth not over- 
flow all the earth ? 

The missionary took an apple and illustrated 
the shape of the earth, the motion on its axis, 
and round the sun ; then showed them how God 
made a great hollow ditch for the waters, which 
was so deep as to hold the waters by the attrac- 
tion of gravitation, so that notwithstanding their 
convexity, they could not overflow the earth. 

During a recess in this interview, the Indians 
were busily employed in discussing these several 
subjects among themselves, their minds being 
evidently excited by them, through the effect of 
new ideas upon subjects which were new or had 
always been incomprehensible to them. Being 
afterwards asked if they wished to propose any 
further questions, one asked, 

If a man has committed some great sins, (sto- 
len goods, &c.,) and the Sachem does not punish 
him, and he is not punished, but he restores the 
goods, what then ? is not all well now ? meaning 
8=^ 



90 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

to ask whether restoration made sufficient amends 
to the law of God. 

He was told that though men be not offended 
at such sins, yet God is angry. The holiness of 
God was here illustrated. Such a sinner should 
seek forgiveness as much as any other sinner 
through the blood of Christ. 

Upon hearing this answer, the Indian who 
proposed the question drew back and hung down 
his head, with an appearance of great sorrow 
and confusion, and finally broke out saying, 
*' Me little know Jesus Christ, or me should seek 
hitn better." Mr. Eliot comforted him by tell- 
ing him that as it is early dawn at first when 
there is but little light, but the sun rises to per- 
fect day, so it would be with him and his people 
with regard to a knowledge of the favor of God 
if they would seek Him. 

One of the Indians who had received religious 
impressions in his acquaintance with the colo- 
nists, said he would propose this question. A 
little while since he said he was praying in his 
wigwam to God and Jesus Christ, that God 
would give him a good heart; that in his prayer 
another Indian interrupted him and told him 
that he prayed in vain, because that Jesus Christ 
could not understand what Indians speak in 
prayer ; he had been used to hear Englishmen 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 91 

pray, and so could well enough understand tlicni, 
but Indian language in prayer he was not ac- 
quainted with. His question therefore was, 
*' Whether God and Jesus Christ did understand 
Indian prayers ?" 

At the close of one interview, Mr. Eliot prayed 
for above fifteen minutes in the Indian tongue, 
that they might feel that Christ understood such 
prayers. The Indians stood about him in gro- 
tesque figures, some of them lifting up their eyes 
and their hands to accompany the prayer, and 
one of them holding a rag to his eyes and weep- 
ing violently, and after prayer retiring to a cor- 
ner of the wigwam to weep in secret ; which 
one of Mr. Eliot's companions observed and 
spoke with him, and found him to be deeply 
affected with a sense of his guilt. 

Mr. Eliot makes several useful observations 
in view of his first two visits to the Indians. 

1. None of them slept in sermon or derided 
God's messenger. 

2. That there is need of learning in minis- 
ters who preach to Indians more than to gracious 
Christians, in order to answer their philosophical 
questions. 

3. That there is no need of miraculous or 
extraordinary gifts in seeking the conversion of 
the most depraved of the human family. 



92 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

4. If Englishmen despise the preaching- of 
faith and repentance and humiliation for sin, the 
poor heathens will be glad of it, and it shall do 
good to them. 

He adds to this, The Lord grant that the 
foundation of our English woe be not laid in the 
ruin and contempt of those fundamental doc- 
trines of faith, repentance, humiliation for sin, 
but rather relishing the novelties and dreams of 
such men as are surfeited with the ordinary 
food of the Gospel of Christ. Indians shall 
weep to have faith and repentance preached, 
when Englishmen shall mourn, too late, that are 
weary of such truths. 

5. That the deepest estrangement of man 
from God is no hindrance to his grace, nor to 
the Spirit of grace. What nation or people 
ever so deeply degenerated since Adam's fall, 
as these Indians, and yet the Spirit of God is 
working upon them. 

" It is very likely if ever the Lord convert any 
of these natives, they will mourn for sin exceed- 
ingly, and consequently love Christ dearly ; for 
if by a little measure of light such heart-break- 
ings have appeared, what may we think will be 
when more is let in ?" 

" They are some of them very wicked, some 
very ingenious. These latter are very apt and 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 93 

quick of understanding-, and naturally sad and 
melancholy, (a good servant to repentance) and 
therefore there is the greater hope of heart- 
breakings if ever God brings them effectually 
home, for which we should affectionately pray." 

Mr. Eliot says, " It is wonderful to see what 
a little leaven and that small mustard-seed of 
the Gospel will do, and how truth will work 
when the spirit of Christ hath the setting of it 
on, even upon hearts and spirits most incapable." 
The night after the Indians had heard the Gos- 
pel preached for the third time, an English 
youth lodged in Waban's tent. He said that 
"VVaban instructed his companions with regard 
to the things which they had heard that day, 
and prayed with them, and that he awoke sev- 
eral times that night and began to pray and 
speak to one and another of the Indians of the 
things which they had heard. Mr. E. says. 
This man, being a man of gravity and chief 
prudence, a counsel among them, although no 
Sachem, is like to be a means of great good to the 
rest of his company, unless cowardice or witch- 
ery put an end, as usually they have done, to 
such hopeful beginnings. 

Two young Indians being at an Elder's house 
one Sabbath evening, having been previously 
affected under Mr. Eliot's preaching, one of 



94 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

them began to confess to the elder how wicked 
he had been, and declared that God could never 
look upon him with love. The elder opened to 
him in a familiar manner the truth of God's 
love to the G:uihy, his willingness to pardon the 
vilest through the redemption made by Christ, and 
illustrated his instructions by the discourse of 
Christ to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, 
and how Christ forgave her though she was liv- 
ing in sin at the moment when he began to 
speak to her. Whereupon the young man be- 
gan to weep bitterly, and the other youth, his 
companion, disclosing his own guilt, burst out 
into loud weeping in which they both continued 
for half an hour. 

An old man told Mr. Eliot at one of the meet- 
ings that he was fully purposed to keep the 
Sabbath, but still he was in fear whether he 
should go to heaven or hell. This was a case 
in which reliance on good works gave as usual 
no peace to the conscience. It led Mr. Eliot to 
speak fully of the way of justification by Christ 
without works, " as the remedy against all fears 
of hell." 

Mr. Eliot was interested in the fact that some 
of the Indians who seemed to receive the Gos- 
pel most readily, and feel its power, were able 
to use "gracious expressions," as he calls them, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 95 

which he was confident they had not heard 
from him, nor from his assistants. He gives a 
specimen of them with the corresponding Indian 
words : 

Amanaomen Jehovah tahassen metagh. 
Take away, Lord, my stony heart, 

Checheson Jehovah kekowhogkovv. 
Wash, Lord, my soul. 

" What are these," he says, "but the sprinklings 
of the spirit and blood of Christ Jesus on their 
hearts ? and 'tis no small matter that such dry, 
barren, and long accursed ground should yield 
such kind of increase in so small a time. I 
would not readily commend a fair day before 
night, nor promise much of such kind of begin- 
nings, in all persons, nor yet in all of these, for 
we know how the profession of many is but a 
mere paint, and their best graces nothing but 
mere flashes and pangs which are suddenly kin- 
dled, and as soon to go out, and are extinct 
again ; yet God doth not usually send his 
plough and seeds-men to a place but there is at 
least some little piece of good ground, although 
three to one be naught ; and methinks the Lord 
Jesus would never have made so fit a key 



96 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

for their locks unless he had intended to open 
some of their doors, and so to make way for his 
coming in." 

At the fourth meeting with the Indians, the 
children having been catechised, and the vision 
of the dry bones, which seems to have impressed 
Mr. Eliot from the first in speaking to the 
Indians, being explained, they offered all their 
children to the English to be educated by 
them. 

At this time one of them being asked, What 
is sin ? he answered, A naughty heart. He did 
not seem to feel that sin consists only in out- 
ward acts. 

One of them complained that some of the 
Indians reviled him and the more serious Indians, 
calling them rogues, and otherwise insulting 
them for cutting off their long locks and arrang- 
ing their hair in a modest manner, for, Mr. 
Eliot says, " since the word hath begun to work 
upon their hearts they have discerned the vanity 
and pride which they placed in their hair, and 
have therefore, of their own accord (none speak- 
ing to them that we know of) cut it modestly." 
They said that some Indians who had heard the 
news of the great attention to religion among 
them, would come from a distance and stay 
with them three or four days, and one Sabbath, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 97 

and then they would go from them, (implying 
that they did not like the Sabbath), but as for 
themselves, they said they were fully purposed 
to keep the Sabbath. 

Some of the Indians who heard the Gospel, 
despised and rejected it. So it has always been 
and is now, wherever the Gospel is preached. 
Some have their hearts opened to attend to the 
things of their peace, and others are hardened. 
Mr. Eliot's assistant, learning that some Indians 
had discouraged and threatened others with re- 
gard to their attendance on the preaching, spoke 
to them on one occasion about the temptations of 
Satan. After sermon they proposed these ques- 
tions : 

1. Some Indians say we must pray to the 
devil for all good, and some to God ; may we 
pray to the devil or no ? 

2. What does humiliation mean, which we 
hear used so often by the English ? 

3. Why do the English call us Indians, for 
before they came here we had another name ? 

4. What is a spirit ? 

5. May we believe in dreams ? 

6. How did the English come to know God 
so much, and we so little ? 

At the close of this interview they said that 

VOL. III. 9 



98 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

their great desire was to have a town and to 
learn to spin. 

They believed in the existence of an evil 
spirit, whom they called Ciiepian, and who they 
thought corresponded to the devil in Scripture. 
They gave the following account of their way 
in which conjurers or Powows were made : 
Whenever an Indian had a strange dream in 
which Chepian appeared to him as a serpent, 
he would make it known to the rest, and for two 
days the Indians would dance and rejoice for 
what the serpent had told him, and he then be- 
came a Powow, or one whom the devil favored 
with his communications. The reader will no- 
tice the identity of the form in which they made 
the devil to appear to them, with the form in 
which he appeared to our first parents. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 99 



CHAPTER V. 

Nonantum granted to the Indians by the General Court. First Indian 
Laws. Eliot's and Sliepard's account of the progress of the Gospel 
among the Indians. Concord Indians. Their laws Nonantum. 
Questions and anecdotes. Cape Cod Indians. The Synod at 
Cambridge, 1643, examine the Christian Indians. " Who made 
Sack?" Anecdotes and Questions. Order of the General Court, 
1647. Regard for the Sabbath. Power of conscience. Questions. 
Burial of a child. Settlement of Nalick. Questions. 

The Indians were desirous of obtaining- a 
grant of land for a permanent settlement, that 
they might enter upon civilized life. They had 
bartered their principal places to the English. 
The General Court purchased of some of the 
planters, who had bought it of the Indians, the 
place where their meeting was held, and gave it 
to them. The Indians inquiring what the name 
of the place should be they were told it should 
be Noonatomen (afterwards Nonantum) which* 
signifies rejoicing, " because they did rejoice at 
the word of God, and God did rejoice over them 
as penitent sinners.'' 

The following is a specimen of their first 
laws : 



100 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

1. If any man be idle a week, or at most a 
fortnight, he shall pay five shillings. 

3. If any man shall beat his wife, his hands 
shall be tied behind him, and he shall be car- 
ried to the place of justice to be severely pun- 
ished. X 

4. Every young xnan, if not another's servant, 
and if unmarried, shall be compelled to set up a 
wigwam, and plant for himself, and not live 
shifting up and down to other wigwams. 

5. If any woman shall not have her hair 
tied up, but hang loose or be cut as men's hair, 
she shall pay five shillings. 

7. All those men that wear long locks, shall 
pay five shillings. 

Most of the facts above narrated are contained 
in a piece written by Mr. Eliot, entitled The 
Day Breaking if not the Sun Rising of the Gos- 
pel with the Indians in New England. It was 
printed in London, " by Richard Cotes, for 
Fulk Clifton, and are to be sold at his shop 
under Saint Margaret's Church, on New-fish 
• Street Hill, 1647." 

The same printer in 1648, issued another 
piece, written by Mr. Thomas Shepard, minis- 
ter of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, at Cambridge, 
in New England, called, " The Clear sun-shine 
of the Gospel breaking forth upon the Indians 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 101 

of New England; or, An Historical Narrative 
of God's Wonderful Workings upon sundry of 
the Indians, both Chief Governors and common 
people, in bringing them to a willing and de- 
sired submission to the Ordinances of the Gos- 
pel ; and framing their hearts to an earnest 
inquiry after the knowledge of God the father 
and of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world." 
This piece was dedicated by Stephen Marshall, 
Jeremy Whitaker, Edmund Calamy and nine 
others, in England, " to the Right Honorable 
the Lords and Commons assembled in High 
Court of Parliament, That in you the Represent- 
atives of this nation, England might be stirred 
up to be Rejoycers in and advancers of these 
promising beginnings." They looked upon the 
success of the Gospel among the Indians as a 
fulfillment in part of the promise of God the 
Father to the Son, "Ask of me, and I will give 
thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the 
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." 
Psalm 2. They remind the Parliament that 
" God makes man's will of sin serviceable to the 
advancement of the riches of his own grace. 
The most horrid act that was ever done by the 
sonnes of men, the murther of Christ, God made 
serviceable to the highest purposes of Grace and 
mercy that ever came upon his breast. Hee 
9* 



102 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

suffered Paul to be cast into prison to convert 
the Jaylor, to be shipwrackt at Milita to preach 
to the barbarous. So he suffered their (the 
Pilgrims') way to be stopp'd up here, (in Eng- 
land) and their persons to be banished hence, 
that hee might open a passage for them in the 
wilderness, and make them instruments to draw 
soules to him, who had been so long estranged 
from Him. The end of the adversary was to 
suppresse, but God's to propagate, the Gospel, 
as one saith of Paul, his blindnesse gave light to 
whole world. ' CoBcitas Pauli totius orbis illumi- 
natio.' Acts 9:9. It was a long time before 
God let them (the Pilgrims) see any further end 
of their coming over than to preserve their con- 
sciences, cherish their Graces, provide for their 
sustenance. But hee let them know it was for 
some farther arrand that he brought them here, 
giving them some Bunches of Grapes, some clus- 
ters of Figs in earnest of the prosperous successe 
of their endeavours upon these poor out casts. 
If the first fruits bee specimens, what will the 
whole harvest bee ? When the East and West 
shal sing together the song of the Lamb." 

Mr. Shepard says that the news of what had 
been done for the Indians at Nonantum, by the 
preaching of the Gospel, had reached the Con- 
cord Indians, and their Sachem was so much 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 103 

affected by it, that he made application to have 
the Gospel and its ordinances made known to 
them. " They craved the assistance of one of 
the chiefe Indians of Noonanetum (Nonantum,) 
a very active Indian, to bring in others to the 
knowledge of God." 

Mr. Eliot had already expressed his views'^ 
on the subject of a native ministry in these 
words, — " Nor doe I expect any great good will 
bee wrought by the English, (leaving secrets to 
God, — although the English surely begin and 
lay the first stones of Christ's Kingdom and 
Temple amongst them) because God is wont or- 
dinarily to convert Nations and peoples by some 
of their owne country men who are nearest to 
them, and can best speake, and most of all pity 
their brethren and countrimen." 

A native ministry among the Indians began, 
in an informal way, much earlier than we have 
seen it begin among other heathen nations. 
The North American Indians, though sunk in 
superstition and wickedness, retained much 
more of intellectual strength, were more shrewd, 
and sooner became fit to teach their country- 
men than has been the case elsewhere in the 



* The Day Breaking &c., p. 15. 



104 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

history of modern missions. No doubt the cli- 
mate had much to do with the vigor of mind 
which the Indians have exhibited. They were 
far removed from the efleminateness of Eastern 
nations, and though indolent in their disposi- 
tions and habits, their minds when roused by the 
truth of the Gospel, rose to greater intellectual 
elTorts than have been commonly seen in tribes 
exposed to the enervating influences of warmer 
latitudes. 

Some quotations from the introduction by 
Calamy and others, to Mr. Shepard's piece above 
referred to, will show the spirit of those good 
men, as well as confirm the fact that the Gospel 
had done wonders in a short time among the 
Indians. It was published in 1648, two years 
after Mr. Eliot had begun his labors with them. 

They tell the readers of the effects which the 
Gospel had wrought among the Indians. " They 
set up prayers in their families morning and 
evening, and are in earnest in them. And with 
more affection they crave God's blessing upon a 
little parched corn, and Indian stalks than many 
of us do upon our greatest plenty, and abund- 
ance. God is making good that promise, 
Zcph. 2:11. I will famish all the gods of the 
earth, (which he doth by withdrawing the wor- 
shipers, and throwing contempt upon the wor- 



LIFE OF JOJIN ELIOT. 105 



ship,) and men shall worship me alone, every 
one from his place, even all the isles of the 
heathens." 

They call upon the people of England to read 
and ponder this remarkable narrative of the 
work of grace among the North American 
Savages. "Let these poor Indians stand up 
incentives to us, as the Apostle set up the Gen- 
tiles a provocation to the Jews ; who knows but 
God gave life to New England to quicken Old, 
and hath warmed them that they might heat us ; 
raised them from the dead, that they might 
recover us from that consumption, and those sad 
decays which are come upon us." 

" This small Treatise is an Essay to that end, 
an Indian Sermon ; though you will not hear us, 
possibly when some rise from the dead you will 
hear them. The main Doctrine it preacheth 
unto all is to value the Gospel, prize the min- 
istry, loath not your manna, surfeit not of your 
plenty, be thankful for mercies, fruitful under 
means : Awake from your slumber, repair your 
decays, redeem your time, improve the seasons 
of your peace, answer to cals, open to knocks, 
attend to whispers, obey commands ; you have 
a name you live, take heed you be not dead, 
you are Christians in shew, be so in deed : least 



106 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

as you have lost the power of religion, God take 
away from you the form also." 

"And you that are ministers learn by this not 
to despond, though you see not present fruit of 
your labors ; though you fish all night and catch 
nothing. God hath a fulness of time to perform 
all his purposes. And the deepest degeneracies 
and the widest estrangements from God shall be 
no bar or obstacle to the power and freeness of 
his own grace when that time is come." 

" And you that are merchants, take incour- 
agement from hence to scatter beams of light, to 
spread and propagate the Gospel into those dark 
corners of the earth ; whither you traffick you 
take much from them; if you can carr}'^ this to 
them, you will make them an abundant recom- 
pense. And you that are Christians indeed, 
rejoice to see the Curtains of the Tabernacle 
inlarged, the bounds of the Sanctuary extended, 
Christ advanced, the Gospel propagated, and 
souls saved. And if ever the love of God did 
centre in your hearts, if ever the sense of his 
goodness hath begot bowels of compassion in 
you, draw them forth towards them whom God 
hath singled out to be the objects of his grace 
and mercy ; lay out your prayers, lend your 
assistance to carry on this day of the Lord begun 
among them. The Parents also and many 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 107 

Others being convinced of the evil of an idle life, 
desire to be employed in honest labor, but they 
want instruments and tools to set them on work, 
and cast garments to throw upon those bodies 
that their loins may bless you whose souls 
Christ hath cloathed. Some worthy persons 
have given much ; and if God shall move the 
heart of others to offer willingly towards the 
building of Christ a Spiritual temple, it will 
certainly remain upon their account when the 
smallest rewards from God shall be better than 
the greatest layings out for God." 

It will be perceived that this is an appeal in 
behalf of foreign missions. We will consider 
some of the facts which Mr. Shepard relates, 
and to which this appeal is an introduction. 

" The awakening of the Indians in our Towne," 
says Mr. Shepard, " raised a great noyse among 
all the rest round about us, especially about 
Concord side, where the Sachim and one or two 
more of his men hearing of these things, and of 
the preaching of the Word, and how it wrought 
among them here, came therefore hither to 
Noonanetum, (Nonantum,) to the Indian Lecture, 
and what the Lord spake to his heart wee know 
not, only it seems he was so farre affected as 
that he desired to become more like to the Eng- 
lish, and to cast off those Indian wild and sinfull 



108 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

courses they formerly lived in ; but when divers 
of his men perceived their Sachim's mind, they 
secretely opposed him herein, which opposition 
being known, he therefore called together his 
chief men about him, and made a speech to this 
efTect unto them, viz. : That they had no reason 
at all to oppose those courses the English were 
now taking for their good,- for saith hee, all the 
time you have lived after the Indian fashion, 
under the power and protection of higher Indian 
Sachims, what did they care for you ? They 
onely sought their owne ends out of you, and 
therefore would exact upon you and take away 
your skins, and your kettles, and 3'our wampam 
from you at their own pleasure, and this was all 
that they regarded : but you may evidently see 
that the English mind no such things, care for 
none of your goods, but onely seek your good 
and welfare, and instead of taking away all, 
are ready to give to you." 

The effect of this speech seems to have been 
happy. The Indians sought the assistance of a 
discreet and active Indian at Nonantum, " in 
making certain lawes for their more religious 
and civill government, and behaviour." It will 
interest the reader to observe the fruit of this 
half civilized legislator's advice and labors. Mr. 
Shepard gives us the " Conclusions and Orders 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 109 

made and agreed upon by divers Sachims and 
other principall men amongst the Indians at 
Concord, in the end of the eleventh moneth, 
An. 1646."^ The following are a good speci- 
men of the whole : 

1. Every one that shall abuse themselves 
with* rum or strong liquors, shall pay for every 
time so abusing themselves twenty shillings. 

2. There shall be no more Powwowing 
amongst the Indians. And if any shall here- 
after Powwow, both he that shall Powwow, and 
he that shall cause him to Powwow shall pay 
twenty shillings apiece. 

3. They do desire that they may be stirred 
up to seek after God. 

4. They desire they may understand the 
wiles of Satan, and grow out of love with his 
suggestions and temptations. 

5. That they may fall upon some better 
course to improve their time than formerly. 

6. That they may be brought to the sight of 
the sin of lying, and whosoever shall be found 
guilty herein, shall pay for the first offence five 
shillings, the second ten shillings, the third 
twenty shillings. 



♦ Shepard's Clear Sunshine, p. 39. Hisl. CoU. Vol. IV. 3d 
series. Shaltuck's Hist. Concord. 
VOL. III. 10 



110 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

7. Whosoever shall steale any thing from 
another, shall restore fourfold. 

8. They desire that no Indian hereafter shall 
have any more but one wife. 

9. They desire to prevent the falling out of 
Indians, one with another, and that they may 
live quietly one by another. 

10. That they may follow after humility, 
and not be proud. 

11. That when Indians doe wrong, they 
may be liable to censure by fine or the like, as 
the English are. 

12. That they pay their debts to the En- 
glish. 

13. That they doe observe the Lord's day, 
and whosoever shall prophane it, shall pay 
twenty shillings. 

14. This order refers to the -disgusting prac- 
tice of eating vermin gathered from their per- 
sons ; " and whosoever shall offend in this case 
shall pay for every louse a penny." 

15. They will weare their haire comely as 
the English do, penalty five shillings. 

16. They intend to reforme themselves in 
their former greasing themselves, penalty five 
shillings. 

17. They do all resolve to set up prayer in 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. Ill 

their wigwams, and to seek God both before and 
after nieate. 

20. Whosoever shall play at their former 
games shall pay ten shillings. 

22. Wilful murder shall be punished by 
death. 

23. They shall not disguise themselves in 
their mournings, as formerly; nor shall they 
keep a great noyse by howling. 

25. No Indian shall take an Englishman's 
canooe without leave, penalty five shillings. 

26. No Indian shall come into any English- 
man's house, except he first knock; and this 
they expect from the English. 

27. Whosoever beats his wife, shall pay 
twenty shillings. 

28. If any Indian shall fall out with and 
beate another Indian, he shall pay twenty shil- 
lings. 

29. They desire they may be a towne, and 
either to dwell on this side the Beare swamp, or 
at the East side of Mr. Flint's Pond. 

These orders were put into form by Captain 
Simon Willard, of Concord, whom the Indians 
chose to be their Recorder. They were very 
solicitous that what they agreed upon might be 
faithfully preserved without alteration. The 



112 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

narrative of these conclusions and orders is 
signed by Thomas Flint, and Simon Willard.^ 

Mr. Shepard says that on the 3d March, 
1647, he and the Rev. Messrs. Wilson of Bos- 
ton, Allen, of Dedham, and President Dunster, 
and many Christian friends, attended the Indian 
Lecture at Nonantum. " On which day," he 
says, " perceiving divers of the Indian women 
well affected, and considering that their soules 
might stand in need of answer to their scruples 
as well as the mens, and yet because we knew 
how unfit it was for women so much as to ask 
questions publicly immediately by themselves, 
wee did therefore desire them to propound any 
questions they would be resolved about by 
first acquainting either their Husbands or the 
Interpreter privately therewith ; whereupon we 
heard two questions orderly propounded,; which 
because they are the first ever propounded by 
Indian women in such an ordinance that ever 
wee heard of, and because they may bee other- 
wise useful, I shall therefore set them down." 

The first question was proposed by the wife 
of one Wampooas, a serious Indian, and was to 
this efToct : 

" Do I pray when my husband prays, if I 



♦ Shepard's Clear Sunshine, ic, p. 41. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 113 

speak nothing as he doth, yet if I like what he 
says, and my heart goes with it ? " 

The second was by the wife of one Tothers- 
wampe, viz., "Whether a husband should do 
well to pray with his wife, and yet continue in 
his passions and be angry with his wife ? " 

Mr. Shepard says, he had " heard few 
Christians when they begin to look towards 
God, make more searching questions than these 
Indians." 

An old Indian had an unruly, disobedient 
son. He asked, " What should one do with 
him, in case of obstinacy and disobedience, and 
that will not hear God's word, though his father 
command him, nor will not forsake his drunken- 
ness, though his father forbid him." 

Kev. Mr. Wilson was much moved at this 
question, " and spake so terribly yet so gra- 
ciously as might have affected a heart not quite 
shut up, which this young desperado hearing, 
(who well understood the English tongue,) in- 
stead of humbling himself before the Lord's 
Word, which touched his conscience and con- 
dition so neare, hee was filled with the Spirit of 
Satan, and as soone as ever Mr. Wilson's 
speech was ended, he brake out into a loud con- 
temptuous expression. " So ! " saith he ; which 
we passed by without speaking againe, leaving 
10* 



114 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

the Word with him, which wee knew would 
one day take its effect one way or other upon 
him." 

In 1647, Messrs. Eliot, Wilson and Shepard, 
were sent for to Yarmouth, to arbitrate in some 
difficulties, by means of which " not only that 
bruised Church, but the whole Towne " was 
restored to peace. " But Mr. Eliot, as hee takes 
all other advantages of time, so hee took this, of 
speaking with, and preaching to the poore In- 
dians in these remote places about Cape Cod." 

The Indian dialect varied in forty or sixty 
miles, and on this account, and because the In- 
dians at Cape Cod " were not accustomed to 
sacred language, about the holy things of God, 
wherein Mr. Eliot excels any other of the En- 
glish, who in the Indian language about com- 
mon matters excell him," it was difficult to make 
them understand, yet by the help of one or two 
interpreters, they succeeded. 

There was a Sachem among them of a very 
furious spirit, whom the English for that reason 
called Jehu, He promised to attend the preach- 
ing on the day appointed, and to bring his men 
with him, but that very morning he sent his men 
to sea for fish, and although he came late to 
hear the Sermon, his men were absent. Yet he 
feigned that he did not understand what was 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 115 

said, though the others said that he did under- 
stand, and Mr. Eliot by privately questioning 
him found out that he did. He heard, however, 
" with a dogged look, and a discontented coun- 
tenance." How curious the uniform resemblance 
of the human heart in different classes of hear- 
ers in every age and place, under the preaching 
of the Gospel. Who in preaching has not seen 
a face answering to this Jehu's face, and the 
heart of man to that of this man ? 

It was found on this visit to the Indians of 
Cape Cod, that there was some tradition among 
them of the Gospel having been preached in 
those parts before. An aged Indian told the 
ministers that the very things which Mr. Eliot 
had taught them as the Commandments of God, 
and concerning God, and the making of the 
world by one God, they had heard from some 
old men now dead. A French ship was wrecked 
upon that coast many years before, and among 
the passengers and crew was the Frenchman 
who, the Indian tradition said,"^ while the 
Indians were putting him to death, told them 
that God was angry with them for their sins. 
Mr. Shepard speaks of " the French preacher 
cast upon those coasts many years since." This 
man may have been a French Catholic Priest, 

* See page 19. 



116 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

on his way to the French possessions in 
Canada.* 

The presence of this preacher among' them 
will account for a dream which one of the In- 
dians related to Mr. Shepard and his com- 
panions, as having occurred to him some time 
ago. The tradition of what the preacher had 
said, and the account of his appearance was 
strongly impressed upon his imagination,! as we 
may suppose, without resorting to any other 
explanation of the dream which nevertheless is 
curious and interesting. 

He said that two years before the arrival of 
the English, there w'as a great mortality in that 
region, and one night when he was much dis- 
turbed and broken of his rest, he dreamed that 
he saw many men arrive upon the coast, dressed 
in such clothes as the English wear. Among 
them there was a man wholly in black, with a 
thing in his hand which he now saw was an 
Englishman's book; that the man in black stood 
on a place higher than the rest, with the English 
around him, before a great number of the In- 
dians. This man told the Indians that God was 
moosquantuniy or angry with them, and would 



♦ See Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. I. 
t See Sir Waller Scott's " Deinunology and Wiichcrafi," Let- 
ter II. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 117 

kill them for their sins. He said, that he him- 
self then stood up, and asked the man in black 
what God would do with him and his Squaw 
and Papooses. The man would not answer him 
the first nor the second time, but the third time 
he proposed the question, the man smiled upon 
him, and told him that he and his papooses 
would be safe, and that God would give them 
victuals and other good things. 

Strange as it may seem, this dreamer who 
seemed thus to have had his dream fulfilled, 
would not come to the sermon till it was nearly 
finished, and then finding that the man in 
black was yet speaking, "away he flung," and 
was seen no more by the ministers till the next 
day. Whether Satan, or fear, or guilt, or the 
world prevailed, Mr. Shepard says he could not 
say. 

The next year this writer says, he was much 
surprised in attending an Indian Lecture at 
Nonantum, to see so many Indian men, women, 
and children, in English apparel, so that they 
were scarcely known from the English people. 
Partly by gifts, and partly by their own labors, 
some of them had obtained means by which 
they were even handsomely dressed. 

June 9, 1648, was the first day of the Synod's 
meeting at Cambridge. The forenoon was spent 



i 



118 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

in hearing a sermon preparatory lo the work of 
the Synod, and the afternoon was occupied in 
hearing an Indian Lecture. " There was a great 
gathering of Indians from all parts to hear Mr. 
Eliot, which we conceived not unseasonable at 
such a time ; partly that the reports of God's 
worke beirun amonjr them mic:ht be seen and 
believed of the chief who were then sent, and 
met from all the churches of Christ in this coun- 
try, who could hardly believe the reports they 
had heard concerning these new stirs among the 
Indians, and partly hereby to raise up a greater 
spirit of prayer, for the carrying on the work 
begun upon the Indians among all the churches 
and servants of the Lord Jesus. The sermon 
was spent in showing them their miserable con- 
dition without Christ, out of E[)hes. 2 : 1, that 
they were dead in trespasses and sinnes, and in 
pointing unto them the Lord Jesus who onely 
could quicken them." 

After sermon, opportunity was given for the 
Indians lo ask questions. Some of them were 
these : 

What countryman was Christ, and where was 
he born ? 

How far ofl^is that place from us here ? 

Where is Christ now ? 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 119 

How may we lay hold on Christ, and where, 
he being now absent from us ? 

Mr. Shepard continues, " But that which I note 
is this, that their gracious attention to the Word, 
the affections and mournings of some of them 
under it, their sober propounding of divers and 
spiritual} questions, their aptnesse to beleeve 
and understand what was replyed to them ; the 
readiness of divers poore naked children to an- 
swer openly the chief questions in the Cate- 
chism, which were formerly taught them, and 
such like appearances of a great change upon 
them did marvellously affect all the wise and 
godly ministers, magistrates and people, and did 
raise their hearts up to great thankfulnesse to 
God ; very many deeply and abundantly mourn- 
ing for joy to see such a blessed day, and the 
Lord Jesus so much known and spoken of 
among such as never heard of him before : So 
that if any in England doubt of the truth of 
what was formerly writ ; or if any malignant 
eye shall question and vilifie this work, ihey 
will now speak too late, for what was here done 
at Cambridge, was not set under a Bushell, but 
in the open Sunne ; and what Thomas would 
not beleeve by the reports of others, he might be 
forced to beleeve by seeing with his own eyes. 



120 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

and feeling Christ Jesus thus risen among them 
with his own hands. '"^ 

An old Indian came to Mr. Eliot's house, as 
Mr. Eliot told Mr. Shepard, and Mr. Eliot told 
him that because he brought his wife and chil- 
dren to meeting so constantly, he would give 
him some clothes, for it was cold weather, and 
the old man was quite destitute. He did not 
understand this term which Mr. Eliot used for 
clothes, and enquired of Mr. Eliot's Indian do- 
mestic, and when he understood that it was 
clothing which was promised, he broke out with 
much feeling, saying, " God is merciful : " — " a 
blessed, because a plainhearted, affectionate 
speech," says Mr. Shepard, " and worthy of Eng- 
lishmen's thoughts when they put on their 
clothes ; to think that a poor blind Indian that 
scarce ever heard of God before, that hee should 
see not only God in his clothes, but mercy also 
in a promise of a cast off worne sute of clothes, 
which were then given him, and which he now 
daily wears." 

Mr. S. says that " Mr. Edward Jackson one of 
our Towne, constantly attended Mr. Eliot's 
Lectures, and took down the questions and an- 
swers, and having sent me his notes, I shall 
send you a taste of some of them," viz. : 



• " Cleaxe Sunshine of the Gospel," p. 46. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 121 

1. Why are some so bad that they hate those 
men that would teach them fjood thiners ? 

2. Was the devil or man made first ? 

3. U a father prays to God to teach his sons 
to know him, and he doth teach them himself, 
and they will not learn to know God, what 
should such fathers do ? This question was pu 
by an old man that had rude children. 

4. A Squaw asked this question : Whether 
she might not go and pray in some private 
place in the woods, when her husband was not 
at home, because she was ashamed to pray in 
the wigwam before company ? 

5. How may one know wicked men, who are 
good, and who are bad ? 

6. To what nation did Jesus Christ come 
first unto, and when ? 

The following question illustrates the old say- 
ing, that a child or fool may ask a question 
which a philosopher cannot answer. It relates 
to the solemn and fearful subject of the dissolu- 
tion of the body and soul. Who has not, at least 
in his earlier years, puzzled himself with ques- 
tions about the passage of a departing spirit 
from the chamber of death ? The question re- 
ferred to was this : 

7. If a man should be inclosed in iron a foot 
thick, and thrown into the fire, what would be- 

VOL. III. 11 



122 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

come of the soul ? Could the soul come out 
thence or not ? 

8. AVhy did not God give all men good 
hearts, that they might be good ? 

9. If one should be among strange Indians 
that know not God, and they should make him 
to fight against some whom he ought not to 
fight against, and he should refuse, and for his 
refusal they should kill him, what would become 
of his soul in such a case ? This question was 
asked by a " stout fellow," whose mind was 
interested in religion, and was connected with 
the notion of the Indians that all their valiant 
men have a reward after death. He seemed to 
think that his refusal to fight in the case sup- 
posed, might prejudice his chance of reward 
hereafter. 

10. How long is it before men believe who 
have the word of God made known unto them ? 

11. How may we know when our faith is 
good, and our prayers good prayers ? 

12. Why did not God kill the devil, that made 
all men so bad, God having all power ? 

13. If we be made weak by sin in our hearts, 
how can we come before God to sanctify the 
Sabbath ? 

An amusing incident took place at one of the 
public meetings. A drunken Indian cried out. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 123 

*' Mr. Eliot, who made sack? Who made 
sack ? " This, it will be perceived, was a cavil 
about the " origin of evil." It is said that *' he 
was soon snib'd by the other Indians, who cried 
out that it was a papoose question. Mr. Eliot 
seriously answered him; which hath cooled 
his boldness ever since." 

The man who took down these questions says 
that " he had some occasion to speak to Waban, 
(one of the chief men at Nonantum,) about the 
time of sun-rising, and staying about half an 
hour, as he came back by one of the wigwams, 
the man of that wigwam was at prayer, at which 
he was so much affected that he stopped under 
a tree to listen ; and these passages of Scripture 
came to his mind while listening to the voice of 
devotion from the wigwam : ' All the ends of 
the earth shall remember and turn unto the 
Lord.' * thou that hearest prayer, unto thee 
shall all flesh come.' " 

He says that he had seen an Indian call his 
children in from the field where they were 
gathering corn, when he asked a blessing upon 
the food before them, " with much affection, 
having but a homely dinner to eat." Mr. 
Shepard adds, " I wish the like hearts and 
wayes were seen in many English who professe 
themselves Christians, and that herein and many 



124 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

the like excellencies they were become Indians, 
excepting that name, as he did, in another case, 
except these bonds." 

The following is the substance of an order 
passed by the General Court at Boston, May 
26, 1647, concerning the Indians. 

" Upon information that the Indians dwelling 
among us, and submitted to our government, 
being by the ministry of the Word brought to 
some civility, are desirous to have a course of 
ordinary judicature set up among them : 

" It is ordered, therefore, by authority of this 
Court, that some one or more of the magistrates, 
as they shall agree among themselves, shall, 
once every quarter, keep a Court at such place 
where the Indians ordinarily assemble to hear 
the Word of God, and may then hear and deter- 
mine all causes civill and criminall, not being 
capitall, concerning the Indians only; and that 
the Indian sachims shall have libertie to take 
order in the nature of summons or atachments, to 
bring any of their own people to the said Courts, 
and to keep a Court of themselves every moneth, 
if they see occasion, to determine small causes 
of a civill nature, and such smaller criminall 
causes, as the said magistrates shall refer to 
them : and the said sachims shall appoint offi- 
cers to serve warrants, and to execute the orders 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 125 

and judgements of either of said Courts, which 
officers shall from time to time bee allowed by 
the said magistrates in the quarter Courts, or by 
the Governour : And that all fines to bee im- 
posed upon any of the Indians, in any of the said 
Courts, shall goe and bee bestowed towards the 
building of some meeting-houses, for education 
of their poorer children in learning, or other pub- 
lick use, by 'the advice of said magistrates, and 
of Master Eliot, or of such other elder, as shall 
ordinarily instruct them in the true Religion. 
And it is the desire of this court that the said 
magistrates, and Master Eliot, or such other 
elders as shall attend the keeping of the said 
Courts, will carefully indeavour to make the In- 
dians understand our most useful! Lawes, and 
the principles of reason, justice, and equity, 
whereupon they are grounded ; and it is desired 
that some care may be taken of the Indians on 
the Lord's dayes." 

Mr. Shepard speaks of his brother Eliot as a 
man " whom, in other respects, but especially 
for his unweariednesse in this work of God, 
going up and down among them, and doing 
them good, I think we can never love nor 
honor enough." Mr. Eliot says, " That which 
I first aymed at was to declare and deliver 
unto them the law of God, to civilize them; 
11# 



126 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

which course the Lord took by Moses, to 
give the law to that rude company, because 
of transgression, Galatians 3: 19, to convince, 
bridle, restrain, jind civilize them, and also 
to humble them. But when I first attempted 
it they gave no heed unto it, but were weary, 
and rather despised what I said. A while 
after God stirred up in some of them a de- 
sire to come into the English fashions, and live 
after their manner, but knew not how to at- 
tain unto it ; yea, despaired that it should ever 
come to passe in their dayes ; but thought that, 
in 40 yeears more, some Indians would be all one 
English, and in an hundred yeears all Indians 
hereabout would so bee : which when I heard, 
(for some of them told me they thought so, and 
that some wise Indians said so,) my heart moved 
within me, abhorring that wee should sit still 
and let that work alone, and hoping that this 
notion in them was of the Lord, and that this 
mind in them was a preparation to embrace the 
law and Word of God ; and therefore I told 
them that they and wee were all one save in two 
things, which make the only difference betwixt 
them and us : First, wee know, serve, and pray 
unto God, and they doe not. Secondly, we la- 
bor and work in building, planting, clothing our- 
selves, &c., and they doe not; and would they 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 1 27 

but doe as wee doe in these thin<Ts they would 
bee all one with Englishnien. They said they 
did not know God, and therefore could not tell 
how to pray to him nor serve him. I told them 
if they would learn to know God, I would teach 
them ; unto which they being very willing, I 
then taught them, (as I sundry times had in- 
deavored afore,) but never found them so forward, 
attentive, and desirous till this time; and then I 
told them I would come to their wigwams and 
teach them, their wives and children, which 
they seemed very glad of; and, from that day 
forward, I have not failed to doe that poore little 
Avhich you know I doe." 

Mr. Eliot says that he found the usual oppo- 
sition to religion among Indians which he found 
among white men. The Indians of " Dorches- 
ter Mill," for example, would not, at first, regard 
his instructions ; " but the better sort of them per- 
ceiving how acceptable this was to the English, 
both to magistrates, and all the good people, it 
pleased God to step in and bow their hearts, to 
desire to be taught to know God." " The Linn 
Indians," Mr. Eliot said, " are all naught save 
one." This was owing to the opposition of 
their sachem. 

A sober Indian going up into the country 
with two of his sons, prayed as he used to do at 



\ 



123 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

home, and talked to the Indians about God and 
Jesus Christ ; whereupon they mocked, and 
called one of his sons Jehovah, and the other 
Jesus Christ. 

The Nonantum Indians early began to ob- 
serve the Lord's day. They fined every violator 
of tlie Sabbath ten shillings. One Sabbath 
morning the sachem's wife went to fetch water, 
when, meeting with other Indian women, she 
fell into worldly conversation with them, but 
they reproved her. She insisted that it was not 
improper, but the other women informed the 
native Indian preacher who was to address them 
that day, and he discoursed to them upon the 
sanctification of the Sabbath, and in his dis- 
course related what he had heard about the 
sachem's wife. After sermon they had much 
conversation on the subject, in which the sa- 
chem's wife insisted that, inasmuch as her con- 
versation was in private, and early on the 
Sabbath morning, there was no harm in it; and 
then she retorted upon the preacher by telling 
him that he had sinned much more than she in 
giving occasion to so much talk about this sub- 
ject on the Sabbath. The whole matter was, by 
common consent, referred to Mr. Eliot for his 
arbitration. 

Towards evening, on another Sabbath, two 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 129 

Strangers came to Waban's tent (Nonantnm) ; 
and when they came in, they told him that, 
about a Vnile ofT, they had chased a racoon into 
a hollow tree, and that if he would send his ser- 
vants to fell the tree, they might catch him, 
which Waban, in his desire to entertaia the 
strangers with fresh game, accordingly did. 
Whereupon the Indians were much displeased, 
and this case was, by request, made the subject 
of discourse on the next lecture day. 

Another case was this. " Upon a Lord's day 
their public meeting holding long, and some- 
what late when they came at home, in one wig- 
wam the fire was almost out, and therefore the 
man of the house, as he sat by the fireside, took 
his hatchet and split a little dry piece of wood, 
which they reserve on purpose for such use, and 
so kindled his fire, which, being taken notice of, 
it was thought to bee such a worke as might not 
lawfully bee done upon the Sabbath day, and 
therefore the case was propounded the lecture 
following for their better information." 

A great improvement was soon visible among 
them in their treatment of their wives. A man 
who had offended in this respect was brought 
before the assembly at a time when the governor 
and many of the colonists happened to be present. 
The man being publicly accused of beating his 



\ 



130 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

wife, made no defence, but confessed his sin, 
and being kindly admonished and instructed, he 
turned his face to the wall and wept ; " and such 
was the modest, penitent, and melting behaviour 
of the man that it much aftected all to see it in 
a barbarian, and all did forgive him ; onely this 
remained, that they executed their law notwith- 
standing his repentance, and required his fine, 
to which he willingly submitted, and paid it." 

The power of conscience among them is il- 
lustrated by Mr. Eliot in the two following an- 
ecdotes. 

The son of a sachem, 14 or 15 years old, had 
been intoxicated ; and being reproved by his 
father and mother for disobedient and rebellious 
conduct, he despised their admonition. Before 
Mr. E. heard of it, he had observed that on 
being catechised, the fifth commandment being 
required of him, he reluctantly said, " Honor thy 
father," but left out " mother." 

George, the Indian, who asked, in a public 
meeting, " Who made sack ? " killed a cow, and 
sold it at the college for a moose. President 
Dunstcr was unwilling that he should be directly 
charged with it, but wished Mr. Eliot to inquire 
of him as to the crime. But being brought be- 
fore the assembly, he freely confessed his sin. 

The Indians were never weary of asking 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 131 

questions in the public meetings. An old Pow- 
aw once demanded, Why, seeing the English 
had been in the land twenty-seven years, they 
had never taught the Indians to know God till 
now ? He added, many of us have grown old 
in sin, whereas had you begun with us earlier, 
we might have been good. 

The answer was that the English did repent 
that they were not more earnest at the first to 
seek their salvation, but the Indians were never 
willing to hear till now, and as God has now 
inclined their hearts to hear, the English were 
striving to redeem the time. 

Another question was of deep interest. One 
of them said, That before he knew God, he 
thought he was well, but since, he had found 
his heart to be full of sin, and more sinful than 
it ever was before ; and that this had been a 
great trouble to him ; that at that day his heart 
was but little better than it was at first, and he 
was afraid it would be as had as it was before^ 
and therefore he sometimes wished that he might 
die before he should be so bad again ! Now, 
said he, my question is. Is this wish a sin? 
Mr. E. says this question was evidently the 
result of his own experience and seemed to be 
sincere. 

Another question was this : 



132 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. * 

Whither do our little children go when they 
die, seeing they have not sinned ? 

This led to an exposition of the depravity of 
man's nature, and of the part which it is hoped 
dying infants have in the redemption made by 
Christ, and the covenant relation of the children 
of believers, which last doctrine Mr. Eliot says, 
" was exceedingly grateful unto them." 

The whole assembly at one time united and 
sent a question to Mr. Eliot by his man, as their 
united question, viz : 

" Whether any of them should go to heaven, 
seeing they found their hearts full of sin, and 
especially full of the sin of lust?" At the next 
lecture held at " Dorchester mill," occasion was 
taken to preach to them from Matt. 11 : 28, 29. 
" Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden," &;c., when the justifying grace of Christ 
to all who are weary and sick of sin was fully 
and earnestly set forth. But at this time they 
repeated their fearful apprehension that " none 
of them would go to heaven." 

A question which uniformly troubled all who 
began to think of embracing religion was this : 

'* If we leave off Powawing and pray to God, 
what shall we do when we are sick ?" For 
though they had some knowledge of the medici- 
nal qualities in certain roots and herbs, they of 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 133 

course had no knowledge of the human system, 
and hence no skill in applying their remedies, 
but relied on the antics and unearthly gestures 
and incantations of their Powaws to make the 
medicines take effect. Mr. Eliot expressed the 
desire that the Lord would stir up the hearts of 
some people in England to give some mainte- 
nance towards a school or academy, wherein 
there should be " Anatomies, and other instruc- 
tions that way." Mr. E. had himself showed 
them an anatomy, the only one he says the 
English had ever had in the country. By a 
course of instruction in medicine Mr. E. believed 
that he could most effectually, and perhaps, in 
the only way, "root out their Powaws." 

The Indians proposed this question to Mr. 
Eliot: 

•' What shall we say to some Indians who 
say to us, What do you get by praying to God, 
and believing in Jesus Christ ? You go naked 
still, and are as poor as we. Our corn is as 
good as yours ; and we take more pleasure than 
you ; if we saw that you got any thing by pray- 
ing to God, we would do so." 

Mr. E. answered to them on this point as 
follows : " First, God gives two sorts of good 
things; 1. little things, which he showed by 
his little finger, (' for they use and delight in 

VOL. III. 12 



134 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

demonstrations ;') 2. great things, (holding up 
his thumb). The little mercies he said are 
riches, clothes, food, sack, houses, cattle, and 
pleasures, all which serve the body for a little 
while, and in this life only. The great mercies 
are wisdom, the knowledge of God, Christ, 
eternal life, repentance and faith ; these are for 
the soul, and eternity. Though God did not 
give them so many little things, through the 
knowledge of the Gospel, he gave them the 
greater things which are better. This he 
proved by an illustration : when Foxun^ the 
Mohegan Counselor, who is counted the wisest 
Indian in the country, was in the Bay, I did on 
purpose bring him unto you ; and when he was 
here, you saw he was a fool in comparison of 
you, for you could speak of God, and Christ, 
and heaven, &c. ; but he sat and had not one 
word to say unless you talked of such poor 
things as hunting, wars, &c." 

He also told them that they had some more 
clothes than the wicked Indians ; and the reason 
why they had so few, was because they had so 
little wisdom ; but if they were wise to obey 
God's commands, for example, " Six days shalt 
thou labor," they would have clothes, houses, 
cattle, and riches, as the English have. 

Many questions and cases of dispute arose 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 135 

out of their old practice of gaming-, to which 
they were greatly addicted. The irreligious 
Indians demanded the old stakes of some Avho 
had heen convinced of the sin of gaming, and 
had declined to pay their forfeits. The winners 
however, insisted on being payed. Mr. Eliot 
had no little trouble in settling the matters of 
casuistry and conscience which thus occurred. 
But he took this method in many cases. He 
prevailed on the creditor to accept one half 
of his demand, having first showed him the 
sinfulness of gaming. He then told the debtor 
in private that God requires us to fulfill our 
promises though to our hurt, and then asked 
him if he would pay half. In this way such 
cases were many of them settled, for the credit- 
ors refused Mr. Eliot's proposition, that whoever 
challenged a debt incurred by gaming should 
go before the Governor with his demand. 

The demand upon Mr. Eliot for agricultural 
and other implements soon increased beyond 
his ability to supply them. The women were 
desirous of learning to spin ; wheels were pro- 
cured for them. The men began to supply the 
English market all the year round, in the win- 
ter with brooms, staves, eel-pots, baskets, and 
turkies ; in the spring with cranberries, fish, and 
strawberries ; in the summer, with whortleber- 



136 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

ries, grapes and fish ; and in tlie autumn, with 
cranberries, fish and venison. Some of them 
worked with the English in haying time, and 
harvest; but it was hard work for. them with 
their old habits of indolence. " Old boughs," 
says Mr. Eliot, " must be bent a little at once ; 
if we can set the young twigges in a better bent, 
it will bee God's mercy." 

Mr. Eliot fell in with a Narragansett Sachem, 
and having spoken to him on the subject of 
religion, asked him if he did not believe such 
things ? The Sachem seemed averse to answer, 
and Mr. E. asked him why he had not profited 
more by the instructions of a Mr. Williams, 
their teacher ? He answered that the Indians did 
not care to learn of him, because he is no good 
man, but goes out and works upon the Sabbath 
day. "I name it," says Thomas Shepard, "not 
to show what glimmerings nature may have 
concerning the observation of the Sabbath, but 
to show what the ill example of the English 
may do, and to show lohat a stumhling-block to 
all religion the loose observation of the Sab- 
bath 2>." 

In a few years Mr. Eliot says a visible im- 
provement had taken place in many of the 
domestic habits of the Indians, indicating an 
advancement in the principles and sentiments 



L I F K OF JOHN ELIOT. 137 



of civilization. Not only were they as a gen- 
eral thing respectably clothed, but the common 
wigwams at Nonantum equalled those of Sa- 
chems in other tribes, and instead of herding 
together in one room they made divisions and 
apartments in their houses from feelings of 
propriety and modesty. 

Questions relating to the plurality of their 
wives perplexed them, and gave occasion for the 
same judicious decisions on this delicate and 
trying subject which are now made by our wise 
and discreet missionaries in lands where the 
same practice exists. While some good men 
are in favor of driving the ploughshare at once 
among the roots of this and every other evil 
in the institutions and customs of corrupt soci- 
ety, it is found impracticable to do so, by those 
who see the complicated nature of these prac- 
tices, without occasioning still greater evils. 
Remedial measures are in operation among the 
converts from heathenism and paganism by 
which caste and polygamy and other social 
evils will in time, but not in a day or year, be 
done away. The process of cure was more 
rapid among the Indians, than it is among the 
Oriental tribes, for reasons connected with the 
character of the people, the ascendency which 
religion soon had among them, and the absence 
12^ 



138 LIFE OF JOHiN ELIOT 



of opposing influences in the government of the 
irihos. 

Tlic text from wliich Mr. Eliot preached liis 
first sermon at Nonantum, (" Prophesy to the 
wind," &c.) and wliich made Waban, whose 
name translated, is, the wind, liad produced 
decided eflect on Iiim, and he became useful in 
diffusing the knowledge of the Gospel to other 
tribes, at Concord, at places on the Merrimack, 
and elsewhere. He remained steadfast in the 
faith, and never ceased to think that the Word 
of God was directed specially to himself in that 
first sermon of Mr. Eliot, though Mr. E. says 
that he had no design in the coincidence be- 
tw'een the text and the Indian's name. 

Mr. Eliot once preached to the Indians from 
these words, Ephes. 5: 11, "Have no fellow- 
ship w'ith the unfruitful works of darkness," &c. 
One of the questions proposed after sermon was' 
this : 

What do Englishmen think of Mr. Eliot, 
because he comes among wicked Indians to 
teach them ? 

Another question was as follows : 

Suppose two men sin. The one knows he 
sinneth, and the other doth not know sin, will 
God punish both alike ? 

Another asked, Suppose there should be one 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 139 

wise Indian that teacheth good things to other 
Indians, whether should not he be as a father or 
brother unto such Indians he so teacheth in the 
ways of God ? 

One of the Indians at Nonantum had a child 
sick of consumption. When it was dead some 
of the Indians came to one of the English and 
asked him the proper manner of burial. Where- 
upon the father procured some pieces of board 
and nails, and made a decent coffin ; and about 
forty of the tribe went with the body to the 
grave. There having laid the body in the 
earth, in a solemn and suitable manner, with- 
out any bowlings, or heathenish rites, or savage 
gesticulations, they made up the mound, and 
then of their own accord, for it was not the Eng- 
lish custom, they assembled for prayer near the 
grave, and requested one of their number, a 
serious Indian by the name of Totherswamp, to 
pray with them, which he did, " with such zeal 
and variety of gracious expressions, and abun- 
dance of tears, both of himself and most of the 
company, that the woods rang again with their 
sighs and prayers." 

Thomas Shepard says, " I know that some will 
think that all this work among them is done 
and acted thus by the Indians to please the 
English, and for applause from them ; and it is 



140 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

not unlikel)' Imt 'lis so in man3^ who doe but 
blaze for a time ; but certainly 'lis not so in all, 
but that the power of the Word hath taken place 
in some, and that inwardly and efTectually, but 
how far savingly time will declare. Some may 
say that if it be so, yet they are but few that 
are thus wrought upon. Be it so ; yet so it 
hath ever been, many called, few chosen, and 
yet withal, I believe the calling in of a few 
Indians to Christ, is the gathering home of 
many hundreds more, considering what a vast 
distance there hath been between them and 
God so long, even dayes without number ; con- 
sidering also, how precious the first fruits of 
America will be to Jesus Christ, and what seeds 
they may be of harvests in after times ; and yet 
if there was no great matter seen in those of 
grown years, their children, notwithstanding, 
are of great hopes, both from English and 
Indians themselves, who are therefore trained 
up to schoole, where many are very apt to 
learne, and who are also able readily to answer 
to the questions propounded, containing the 
principles and grounds of all Christian religion 
in their owji tongue. I confesse it passeth my 
skill to tell how the Gospel should be generally 
received by these American natives, considering 
the variety of languages in small distances of 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 141 

places ; onely hee that made their eares and 
tongues can raise up some or other to teach 
them how to heare, and what to spake ; and if 
the Gospel must ride circuit, Christ can and will 
conquer by weake and dispicable meanes, 
though the conquest perhaps may be somewhat 
long.'"^ 

Mr. Eliot wrote an interestinof letter to a 
friend in England, dated Roxbury, this 12th of 
Nov. 1648, and sent it by the way of Vir- 
ginia, and through Spain. 

He says that the Indians used to abhor the 
remembrance of their dead friends, but that now 
they had begun to receive profit from the recol- 
lection of their dying counsels, and hope from 
their confidence in the safety of the pious dead. 
The woman who asked the question, whether, 
when her husband prayed, if she prayed in her 
heart, but did not speak, yet her heart liked 
what he said, it was prayer ; called her two 
grown up daughters to her when she was dying 
and said to them : " I shall now die, and when I 
am dead, your grand-parents and uncles will 
send for you to come live among them and 
promise you great matters, and tell you what 
pleasant living it is among them. But do not 



* Shepard'3 " Cleare Sunshine." 



142 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

believe them, and I charge you never hearken 
unto them, nor live among them ; for they pray 
not to God, keep not the Sabbath, commit all 
manner of sins, and are not punished for it. 
But I charge you live here, for here they pray 
unto God, the Word of God is taught, sins are 
suppressed and punished by laws, and therefore 
I charge you live here all your days." Soon 
after it came to pass as she had said, and the 
case was propounded to Mr. Eliot, and the 
father-in-law opposed the removal of the chil- 
dren, on the ground of their mother's charge. 

The settlement of Natick took place in the 
following way. Many Indians in the country 
were desirous of hearing the Gospel, but they 
would not remove into the neighborhood of the 
English, " because they had no tools or skill, or 
heart to fence their grounds," and so their corn 
was spoiled by the English cattle, and the Eng- 
lish refused to pay for it, because the Indians 
would not build fences. *' Therefore," Mr. E. 
says, " a place must be found (both for this and 
sundry other reasons) somewhat remote from 
the English ; — but I feare it will bee too charge- 
able, though I see that God delighteth in small 
beginnings that his name may be magnified." 

There was a great fishing place at the falls of 
the Merrimack where the Indians assembled 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 143 

every spring-, and Mr. E. visited them. They 
put a question to him after one of his sermons, 
which all who are interested in the conversion 
of the heathen often find occurring to them 
with painful interest. " If it be thus as you 
teach, then all the world of Indians are gone to 
hell, to be tormented forever, until now a few 
may go to heaven and be saved ; is it so ?" 

In the letter which went so far in getting to 
England, Mr. Eliot records some further ques- 
tions from his Nonantum Indians, viz : 

How many good people were in Sodom when 
it was burnt ? 

Doth the devil dwell in us as we dwell in a 
house ? 

When God saith, Honor thy father, doth he 
mean three fathers, our father, our Sachem, and 
our God ? 

When the soul goes to heaven, what doth it 
say when it comes there. And what doth a 
wicked soul say when it cometh into hell ? 

If one sleep on the Sabbath at meeting, and 
another awaketh him, and he be angry at it, 
and say it's because he is angry with him that 
he so doth, is not this a sin ? 

If any talk of another man's faults and tell 
others of it when he is not present to answer, is 
not that a sin ? 



144 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Why did Christ die in our stead? 

Seeing Eve was first in sin, whether she did 
die first? 

Why must we love our enemies, and how 
shall we do it ? 

When every day my heart thinks I must die 
and go to hell for my sins, what shall I do in 
this case ? 

May a good man sin sometimes ? Or may 
he be a good man and yet sin sometimes ? 

If a man think a prayer, doth God know it, 
and will he bless him ? 

Who killed Christ ? 

If a man be almost a good man and dietli, 
whither goeth his soul ? 

How long was Adam good before he sinned ? 

Seeing we see not God with our eyes, if a 
man dream that he seeth God, doth his soul 
then see him ? 

Did Adam see God before he sinned ? Shall 
we see God in heaven ? 

If a wicked man pray, whether doth he make 
a good prayer ? Or when doth a wicked man 
pray a good prayer ? 

Whether God did make hell before Adam 
sinned ? 

If two families dwell in one house, and one 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 14*5 

prayeth and the other not, what shall they that 
pray do to them that do not ? 

Did Abimelech know Sarah was Abraham's 
wife ? 

Did not Abraham sin in saying she was my 
sister ? 

Seeing God pii^mised Abraham so many 
children, like the stars for multitude, why did 
he give him so few ? And was it true ? 

If God made hell in one of the six days, why 
did God make hell before Adam sinned ? 

How shall I bring mine heart to love prayer ? 

If one man repent and pray once in a day, 
another man often in a day, whether doth one 
of them go to heaven, the other not ? Or what 
difference is there ? 

I find I want wisdom, what shall I do to be 
wise ? 

Why did Abraham buy a place to bury in ? 

Why doth God make good men sick ? 

How shall the Resurrection be, and when? 

Do not Englishmen spoil their souls to say a 
thing cost them more than it did ? and is not all 
one as to steal ? 

You say our body is made of clay ; what is 
the sun and moon made of? 

If one be loved of all Indians, good and bad, 

VOL. III. 13 



146 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

another is hated of all, saving a few that be 
good, doth God love both these ? 

I see why I must fear hell and do so every 
day. But why niust I fear God ? 

How is the tongue like fire, and like poison ? 

What if false witnesses accuse me of murther, 
or some foul sin ? » 

What punishment is due to liars ? 

If I reprove a man for sin, and he answer, 
" Why do you speak thus angrily to me ? Mr. 
Eliot teacheth us to love one another ?" — is this 
well ? 

Why is God so angry with murtherers ? 

If a wife put away her husband because he 
will pray to God and she will not, what is to be 
done in this case ? 

If there be young women pray to God, may 
such as pray to God marry one that will not 
pray to God, or what is to be done in this case ? 

Whether doth God make bad men dream 
good dreams ? 

What is salvation ? 

What is the Kingdom of Heaven ? 

If my wife do some work in the house on the 
night before the Sabbath, and some work on the 
Sabbath night, whether this is a sin ? 

If I do a sin, and do not know it is a sin, what 
will God say to that ? 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 147 

Is faith set in my heart or in my mind ? 

Why have not beasts a soul as man hath, 
seeing they have love, anger, &c., as man hath ? 

How is the Spirit of God in us, and where 
is it? 

Why doth God punish in hell for ever? man 
doth not so, but after a time lets them out of 
prison again. And if they repent in hell, why 
will not God let them out again ? 

How shall I know when God accepts my 
prayers ? 

How doth Christ make peace between man 
and God? and what is the meaning of that 
point ? 

Why did the Jews give the Avatchmen money 
to tell a lie ? 

If I hear God's word when I am young, and 
do not believe, but when I am old I believe, 
what will God say ? 

In wicked dreams doth the soul sin ? 

Doth the soul in heaven know things done 
here on earth ? 

Doth the soul in heaven remember what it 
did here on earth before he died ? 

If my heart be full of evil thoughts, and I re- 
pent and pray, and a few hours after it is full 
again, and I repent and pray again ; and if after 



148 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

this it be full of evil thoughts again, what will 
God say ? 

Why did the earth shake at Christ's resur- 
rection ? 

What if a minister wear long hair, as some 
other men do, what will God say ? 

If a man will make his daughter marry a 
man whom she doth not love, what will God 
say? 

Why doth Christ compare the kingdom of 
heaven to a net ? 

Why doth God so hate them that teach others 
to commit sin ? 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 149 



CHAPTER VI. 

Letters respecting the Indians, from individuals in New England, to 
tlicir friends in Old England, ^^peculations about the lost tribes of 
Israel. Remarks. Questions. Samuel Gorton, the Familist. Two 
Indians controvert his opinions. Interesting conversation. Labors 
of the Mayhews on Martha's Vineyard. Covenant of the Indians 
of Martha's Vineyard. Questions. Merrimack Indiana. Accounts 
by the Mayhews of their labors. Questions. 

Some of Mr. Eliot's letters respecting the In- 
dians were published in London, with an appen- 
dix by Rev. " J. D." As we are interested and 
entertained occasionally by a supposed discovery 
of the lost tribes of Israel, it may not be useless 
to give here some of the speculations and rea- 
sonings of this good man, on this subject as 
relating to the North American Indians. He 
begins his appendix with the following words : 

" The works of the Lord are great, sought 
out of all them that love them, saith the Psalm- 
ist ; Ps. Ill: 3. The word which we, render 
sought' out, hath a mighty emphasis in it : 
'Tis a word used sometimes to denote the elab- 
orate care of digging and searching into mines. 
And sometimes it's made use of to expresse the 
13^ 



150 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

accurate labors of those who comment upon 
writings. Indeed, there is a golden mine in 
every work of God ; and the foregoing letters to 
a gracious eye, are as a discovery of a far more 
precious mine in America, than those gold and 
silver mines of India : For they bring tidings of 
the unsearchable riches of Christ, revealed unto 

poore soules in those parts I could not 

pass over so rich a mine without digging. 

*< The general consent of many 

judicious and godly divines doth induce consid- 
ering minds to believe that the conversion of 
the Jews is at hand. It's the expectation of 
some of the wisest Jews now living, that about 
the year 16-50, Either we shall be Mosaick or 
else that themselves Jews shall be Christians. 

There may be at least a remnant of 

the generation of Jacob in America, (perad ven- 
ture some of the Ten tribes dispersions.) And 
that those sometimes poor now precious Indians 
may be as the first fruits of the glorious harvest 
of Israel's redemption. The observation is not 
to be slighted, (though the observer, Mr. Shep- 
ard, said it was more cheerful than deep) that 
the first Text out of which Mr. Eliot preached, 

was about the dry bones Why may we 

not at least conjecture, that God by a special 
finger pointed out that text to be first opened, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 151 

which immediately concerned the persons to 
whom it was preached?" 

He then states the reasons why the Indian 
tribes may be of Jewish descent, viz : 

" 1. They have at least a traditional knowl- 
edge of God, as the Maker of heaven and 
earth. 

2. Whatever they attribute unto others, this 
they peculiarly attribute unto God, viz : that 
all things, both good and evil, are managed by 
his Providence. 

3. Before they had received any instruction 
from the English, upon observation of a bad 
year, or other ill success, they did meet and 
weep as unto God, and on the other side, upon 
a good year, or good success in any business, 
as of War, they used to meet and make a kind 
of acknowledgement of thanks to God in it. 

4. They are careful to preserve the memory 
of their families, mentioning Uncles, Grand- 
parents, &;c. A thing which had a great tang 
of, and affinity to, the Jews' care of preserving 
the memorial of their Tribes. 

5. Those of them who have been wrought 
upon, tell of some face of Religion, wisdom and 
manners which long agoe their ancestors had, 
but that it was lost. 

6. The better and more sober of them de- 



152 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

light much to expresse themselves in parables, 
a thing peculiar to the Jews. 

These and the like considerations prevail 
with me to entertain (at least) a conjecture that 
these Indians of America may be Jews, especial- 
ly of the Ten Tribes. And therefore to hope 
that the work of Christ among them may be as 
preparatory to his own appearing." 

Some of these reasons appertain with equal 
force to other tribes of the earth who have been 
supposed by different writers to be remnants of 
the house of Israel. While we should respect 
the interest and zeal of those who study the 
providence of God, with a view to finding out 
his designs, and to be prepared for the fulfillment 
of his promises, we should not easily yield our 
confidence to any hypothesis which rests merely 
on conjecture, or depends for support in reasons 
which apply equally well to theories inconsistent 
with it. This is not the place to remark at 
large on the interesting subject of the Jews and 
their conversion, but the impression seems hap- 
pily to be extending that the sooner we cease to 
regard them as destined to a national conver- 
sion, and look at them as sinners of the human 
family, like Mohammedans and Papists, and re- 
frain from efforts and a treatment which foster 
their spirit of separation and their assumption 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 153 

of superior dignity and special claims to respect 
and favor, the sooner we shall employ ourselves 
in efforts to address them in a way which will 
be far more likely to humble their pride, and 
prepare them to submit to the Gospel, than the 
somewhat adulatory and flattering method of 
approaching them and speaking of them will 
ever be. 

The improvement which the writer above 
named makes of Mr. Eliot's letters in the fol- 
lowing exhortations is far more obviously correct 
than his speculations about the origin and desti- 
ny of the Indians. He says the work of grace 
among them'should lead the people of England, 

" First, To study and search into the works of 
the Lord, to see how he counter plots the ene- 
my in his designs ; In making the late Bishops 
persecuting of the godly tend to the promoting 
of the Gospel. 

Secondly, To take heed of despising the day 
of small things. 

Thirdly, To be ashamed of and bewail our 
want of affection to and estimation of that glori- 
ous Gospel, and those great things of Christ, 
which these poor Heathens upon the little Glym- 
merings and tasts so exceedingly value and 
improve. 

Fourthly, Doth not the observation of the 



154 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

preceding reports clearly confirm the doctrine of 
the Sabbath, and the practice of prayer. 
tremble, ye Sabbath slighters and duty despis- 
ers, Christ hath witnesses against you in Amer- 
ica The converted Heathen in New 

England goe beyond you, O ye Apostolic 
Christians in England. 

Arise ye heads of our Tribes in Old England, 
and extend your help to further Christ's labour- 
ers in New England. 

Kouse up yourselves, my Brethren ! ye 
preachers of the Gospel, this work concerns you. 
Contrive and plot, preach for and presse the ad- 
vancement hereof. 

Come forth ye masters of money, part with 
your gold to promote the Gospel. If you give 
any thing yearly, remember Christ will be your 
Pensioner. If you give any thing into banke, 
Christ will keep account thereof and reward it." 

The reader, it is to be hoped, will not be 
weary of the Indian questions, which Mr. Eliot 
sent to his friends in England as often as he 
wrote to them. These questions are not only 
curious, but they suggest valuable thoughts and 
lead to profitable reflections. 

If a man know God's Word, said one of 
them at the Indian lecture, but believe it not, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 155 

and he teach others, is that good teaching? and 
if others believe that which he teacheth, is that 
believing or faith? Upon this question Mr. 
Eliot asked them how they could tell when a 
man knoweth God's Word, that he doth not be- 
lieve it ? They answered, When he doth not 
do in his practice answerable to that which he 
knoweth. 

If I teach on the Sabbath that which you have 
taught us, and forget some, is that a sin ? and 
some I mistake and teach wrong, is that a sin ? 

Do all evil thoughts come from the devil, and 
all good ones from God ? 

What is watchfulness ? 

What should I pray for at night, and what 
at morning, and what on the Sabbath day ? 

What is true Repentance ? or how shall I 
know when this is true ? 

How must I wait on God ? 

Shall we see Christ at the day of judg-ment ? 

When I pray for a soft heart, why is it still 
hard? 

You said, God promised to go with Moses ; 
how doth he go with us ? 

When such die as never heard of Christ, 
whither do they go ? 

When the wicked die, do they first go to 



156 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

heaven to the judgment-seat of Christ to be 
judged, and then go away to hell? 

Why doth God say, I am the God of the 
Hebrews ? 

When Christ arose, whence came his soul ? 
When it was replied, From heaven ; they said. 
How then was Christ punished in our stead ? 
or when did he suffer in our stead, afore death, 
or after ? 

When I pray every day, why is my heart so 
hard still, even as a stone ? 

If one purposeth to pray, and yet dieth before 
that time, whither goeth his soul ? 

Why must we be like salt ? 

Doth God know who shall repent, and who 
not ? — why then did God use so much meanes 
with Pharaoh ? 

What meaneth that ' blessed are they that 
mourn ' ? 

When I see a good example, and know that 
it is right, why do I not do the same ? 

What anger is good, and what is bad ? 

Do they dwell in separate houses in heaven, 
or all together, and what do they ? 

If a child die before he sin, whither goeth his 
soul? 'By this question,' says Mr. E., 'it did 
please the Lord to convince them of original sin, 
blessed be his name.' 



i 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 157 

If one that prays to God sins like him that 
prays not, is not he worse ? ' And while,' says 
Mr. Eliot, 'they discoursed of this point, and 
about hating wicked persons, one of them shut 
it up with this : They must love the man and 
do him gdod, but hate his sin.' 

Why do Englishmen so eagerly kill all 
snakes ? 

May a man have good words and deeds, and 
a bad heart, and another have bad words and 
deeds, and yet a good heart ? 

What is it to eate Christ's flesh, and drink his 
blood ; what meaneth it ? 

What meaneth a new heaven and a new 
earth ? 

If but one parent believe, what state are our 
children in? 

How doth much sinne make grace abound ? 

What meaneth that. We cannot serve two 
masters ? 

Can they in Heaven see us here on earth ? 

Do they see and know each other ? Shall I 
know you in heaven ? 

If all the world be burnt up, where shall hell be ? 

Do they know each other in Hell ? 

What meaneth, that Christ meriteth eternal 
life for us ? 

What meaneth that, The woman brought to 

VOL. III. 14 



158 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Christ a box of oyle, and washt his feet with 
tears, &c.? 

What meaneth that of the two debtors, one 
oweth much, another but little ? 

What meaneth God when he sayes, yee shall 
be my jewels ? 

If so old a man as I repent, may I be saved ? 

When we come to believe, how many of our 
children doth God take with us, whether all, 
only young ones, or at what age ? 

What meaneth that, Let the trees of the wood 
rejoice ? 

What meaneth that. The Master doth not 
thank his servant for waiting on him ? 

When Englishmen choose magistrates and 
ministers, how do they know who be good men 
that they dare trust ? 

Seeing the body sinneth, why should the soul 
be punished, and what punishment shall the 
body have ? 

If a wicked man prayeth and teacheth, doth 
God accept, or what saith God ? 

If a man be wise and his Sachem weak, must 
he yet obey him ? 

We are commanded to honour the Sachem, 
but is the Sachem commanded to love us ? 

When all the world is burnt up, what shall 
be in the room of it ? (By an old woman.) 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 159 

Mr. Eliot says, in a letter containing these 
questions, " You may perceive many of the 
questions arise out of such texts as I handle, and 
do endeavour to communicate as much Script- 
ure as I can. The word of the Lord convert- 
eth, sanctifieth, and maketh wise the simple; 
sometimes they aske weaker questions than 
these, which I mention not; you have the best, 
and when I am about writing-, I am careful in 
keeping a remembrance of them ; it may be the 
same question may be again and again asked at 
several places and by several persons. The 
Lord teach them to know Christ, whom to know 
is eternal life. I shall entreat your supplica- 
tions at the throne of grace, under the tender 
iving whereof I now leave you, being forced by 
the time, and rest, 

Your respectful and loving 

brother and fellow-laborer 

in the Indian work, 

John Eliot." 

Samuel Gorton, charged with being a Fam- 
ilist and Antinomian, was banished from 
Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 
The Familists were an Anabaptist sect, founded 
in Holland, in 1555, by Henry Nicholas, a 
Westphalian. They held that the essence of 



160 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

religion consists in the feelings of divine love, 
(and hence they were called the Family of love, 
and faniilists), that all other religious tenets, 
■whether relating to matters of faith or modes of 
worship, are of no consequence, and that it 
is indifTerent what opinions Christians enter- 
tain concerning God, provided their hearts are 
filled with the emotions of piety and love. 
They were confuted by Dr. Henry More, and 
by George Fox, the Quaker. A proclamation 
was issued against them by Queen Elizabeth in 
15S0. 

This Gorton in 1650 was in Khode Island. 
Two of the Nonantum Indians made a visit to 
Providence and Warwick, and spent a Sabbath 
and heard Gorton and his followers explain their 
views, and afterwards had some conversation 
with them. 

Upon their return, on a lecture day, before the 
people had fully assembled, these two Indians 
addressed a question to Mr. Eliot ; and the con- 
versation which ensued is recorded by him as 
illustrating the proficiency in Christian knowl- 
edge to which some of the Indians had attained, 
and their ability to withstand false teachers. 

The question was this : What is the reason 
that seeing those English people, where they had 
been, have the same Bible that Mr. Eliot has, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 161 

yet do not speak the same things ? Being asked 
the reason of his question, they said, They had 
been at Providence and Warwick, and they 
perceived by conversation with them that they 
differed from Mr. E. ; they heard their public 
exercises, but did not understand what they 
meant, though they understood the English 
language well. Being asked what they said, 
they replied, they said thus : 

They (that is Mr. Eliot and his friends) teach 
you that there is a heaven and a hell, but there 
is no such matter. 

Mr. E. asked them what reason they gave for 
this assertion. 

Because there is no other heaven but what is 
in the hearts of good men, and no other hell but 
what is in the hearts of bad men. 

Mr. E. What did you say to that ? 

Indians. We told them we did not believe 
them, because heaven is a place where good 
men go when this life is ended, and hell is a 
place where bad men go when they die, and 
cannot be in the hearts of man. 

Mr. E. approving this answer. What else 
did they say ? 

Indians. They spake of Baptism, and said, 
they teach you that infants must be baptized, 

but that is a very foolish thing. 
14# 



162 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Mr. E. What reason did they give? 

Indians. Because infants neither know God 
nor baptism, nor what they do, and therefore it 
is a foolish thing to do it. 

Mr. E. What did you say to that ? 

India7is. I could not say much ; but I thought 
it was better to baptize them while they be 
young, and then they are bound and engaged; 
but if you let them alone till they be grown up, 
it may be they will fly of}^, and neither care for 
God nor Baptism. 

Mr. E. commended this reply. "What further 
did they say ? 

Indians. They spake of ministers, and said, 
they teach you that you must have ministers, 
but that is a needless thing. 

Mr. E. Why ? 

Indians. They gave these reasons : First, 
ministers know nothing but what they learn out 
of God's book, and we have God's book as well 
as they, and can tell what God saith. Again, 
ministers cannot change men's hearts, God must 
do that, therefore there is no need of ministers. 

Mr. E. What d id you reply ? 

Indians. I told them that we must do as 
God commands us, and if he commands us to 
have ministers we must have them. And further, 
I told them I thoufrht it was true that ministers 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 163 

cannot change men's hearts ; but when we do as 
God bids us, and hear ministers preach, then 
God will change our hearts. 

Mr. E. What else did they speak of? 

Indians. They said, they teach you that 
you must have magistrates, but that is need- 
less. 

Mr. E. What reason did they give ? 

Indians. They said. Because magistrates 
cannot give life, therefore they may not take 
away life ; besides, when a man sinneth, he doth 
not sin against magistrates ; and therefore why 
should they punish them? but they sin against 
God, and therefore we must leave them to God 
to punish them. 

Mr. E. What answer did you make ? 

Indians. I said to that as to the former, we 
must do as God commands us. If God com- 
mands us to have magistrates, and commands 
them to punish sinners, then we must obey. 

In answer to the question, Why all who have 
the Bible do not speak the same things. Mr. 
E. preached on that occasion from 2 Thes. 2: 
10, 11. "Because they believed not the truth 
that they might be saved ; for this cause God 
shall send them strong delusions that they might 
believe a lie," «tec. 

The Rev. Thomas Mayhew, and his son the 



164 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Rev. Experience Mayhevv, prosecuted the work 
of evangelizing the Indians of Martha's Vine- 
yard with signal success. As the relations 
which they give respecting the Indians, and the 
progress of the Gospel among them, correspond 
SO nearly with the foregoing narratives, it is not 
thought necessary to speak of them at large. 
Some idea of the principles which were incul- 
cated by the Mayhews, and of the influence 
which they exerted upon the natives, may be 
derived from the following covenant which Mr. 
Thomas Mayhew wrote for them, and in which 
they all with free consent willingly and thank- 
fully joined. 

COVENANT OF THE INDIANS OF MARTHA's VINE- 
YARD. 

" Wee, the distressed Indians of the Vineyard, 
(or Nope, the Indian name of the Island,) that 
beyond all memory have been without the true 
God, without a Teacher, and without a Law, 
the very servants of sin and satan, and without 
peace, for God did justly vex us for our sins ; 
having lately, through his mercy, heard of the 
name of the True God, the name of his Son 
Christ Jesus, with the holy Ghost, the Com- 
forter, three Persons, but one most Glorious God, 
whose name is Jehovah ; wee do praise His 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 165 

Glorious Greatness, and, in sorrow of our hearts, 
and shame of our faces, we do acknowledge 
and renounce our great and many sins, that 
we and our Fathers have lived in, do run unto 
him for mercy and pardon for Christ Jesus' 
sake; and wc do tliis day, through the blessing 
of God upon us, and trusting to his gracious 
help, give up ourselves in this Covenant, Wee, 
our wives and children, to serve Jehovah : And 
we do this day chuse Jehovah to be our God in 
Christ Jesus, our Teacher, our Lawgiver in his 
Word, our King, our Judge, our Kuler by his 
magistrates and ministers ; to fear God Himself, 
and to trust in Him alone for salvation, both of 
Soul and Body, in this present Life, and the 
Everlasting Life to come, through his mercy in 
Christ Jesus our Saviour and Redeemer, and 
by the might of his Holy Spirt, to whom, with 
the Father and Son, be all Glory everlasting, 
Amen." 

Mr. IMayhew says, " I observed that the In- 
dians, when they chose their Rulers, made 
choyce of such as were best approved for their 
godliness, and most likely to suppress sin, and 
encourage holiness. There was an Indian that 
was well approved for his Reformation, that was 
suspected to have told a plain Lye for his Gain ; 
the business was brought to the public Meeting, 



166 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

and there it was notably sifted with zeal and 
good affection ; but at length the Indian defend- 
ing himself with great disdain and hatred of 
such evil, proved himself clear, and praised God 
for it." 

He also relates the following anecdote : 
" My Father and I were lately talking with an 
Indian who had not long before almost lost his 
life by a wound his Enemies gave him in a 
secret hidden way, the mark whereof he had 
upon him, and will carry it to his grave. This 
man understanding of a secret Plot that was to 
take away his Enemies life, told my Father and 
I, That he did freely forgive him for the sake of 
God, and did tell this Plot to us that the man's 
life might be preserved. This is a singular 
thing, and who among the Heathen will do 
so ? " 

Again : " Myoxeo also lately met with an 
Indian which came from the May7i, (the main- 
land,) who was of some note among them. I 
heard that he told them of the great things of 
God, the sinfulness and folly of the Indians, the 
pardon of sin by Christ, and of a good life; and 
so they were both affected, that they continued 
this discourse two half nights and a day, until 
their strength was spent. He told him in par- 
ticular how a Bcleever did live above the world, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 167 

that he did keep worldly things alwaies at his 
feet, (as he shewed him by a sign,) That when 
they were diminished or increased, it was neither 
the cause of his sorrow or joy, that he should 
stoop to regard them, but he stood upright with 
his heart Heavenward, and his whole desire was 
after God, and his joy in Him." 

He says, " Within two or three weeks (1652) 
there came an Indian to me in business, and by 
the way he told me that some Indians had lately 
kept a day of Repentance to humble themselves 
before God in prayer, and that the word of God 
which one of them spake unto for their In- 
struction, was Psal. 66 : 7. ' He ruleth by his 
Power forever, his eyes behold the nations, let 
not the rebellious exalt themselves.' I asked 
him what their end was in keeping such a day ? 
He told me these six things. 1. ' They desired 
that God would slay the rebellion of their hearts. 

2. That they might love God and one another. 

3. That they might withstand the evil words of 
wicked men, and not be drawn back from God. 

4. That they might be obedient to the good 
words and commands of their Rulers. 5. That 
they might have their sins done away by the 
Redemption of Jesus Christ. And Lastly, That 
they might walk in Christ's way.' " 

In 1651, thirty Indian children were at school 



168 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

which began in November, 1651. *' They are 
apt to learn," says Mr. M., *' and more and more 
are now sending in unto them." 

" I was once," says Mr. M., " down towards 
the further end of the Island, and lodged at an 
Indian's house, who was accounted a great man 
among the Islanders, being the friend of the Sa- 
chem on the Mayn. At this man's house where I 
sate awhile, his son being about thirty years old, 
earnestly desired '^.e, in his Language, to relate 
unto him some of the ancient stories of God. I 
then spent a great part of the night (in such dis- 
course as I thought fittest for them) as I usually 
do when I lodg in their houses ; what he then 
heard did much affect him. And shortly after 
he came and desired to joyn with the praying 
Indians to serve Jehovah." He was persecuted 
for this ; but he told Mr. M. " That if they 
should stand with a sharp weapon against his 
breast, and tell him that they would kill him 
presently if he did not turn to them ; but if he 
would, they would love him ; yet he had rather 
lose his life than keep it on such terms." 

A Powaw once told Mr. M. that after he had 
forsaken his powawing, and had begun to serve 
God, and to renounce his Imps, which he did in 
a public manner, the Imps still remained with 
him tormenting him, so that he could never be 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 169 

at rest, sleeping- or waking. At a Lecture, 
sometime after, lie asked Mr. M. this question : 
If a Powaw had his Imps gone from him, what 
he should have instead of them to preserve him ? 
He was told if he believed in Christ "he should 
have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him, which 
is a good and strong Spirit, and will so keep 
him safe, that all the Devils in Hell, and Pow- 
aws on earth, should not be able to do him any- 
hurt; and that if he did set himself against his 
Imps by the strength of God, they should all 
flee away like muskeetooes." He replied, That 
soon after he had believed he was not troubled 
with any pain as formerly in his bed, nor dread- 
ful visions of the night, but lay down with ease, 
slept quietly, waked in peace, and walked in 
safety ; '* for which he is very glad and praises 
God." 

Mr. Mayhew also relates a fact, like the one 
already given respecting the feelings and con- 
duct of the Christian Indians at the death and 
burial of their children. The case already men- 
tioned, it will be remembered, occurred at No- 
nantum ; this, at Martha's Vineyard. Mr. 
Mayhew says, 

" I have observed the wise disposing hand of 
God in another providence of his. There have 
not, as I know, any man, woman, or child, died, 

VOL. III. 15 



170 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

of the meeting-Indians, since the meeting began, 
until now of late the Lord took away Hia- 
coomes, his child, which was about five days 
old. He was best able to make a good use of 
it, and to carry himself well in it, and so was his 
wife also ; and truly they gave an excellent ex- 
ample in this also as they have in other things; 
here were no black faces for it as the manner of 
the Indians is, nor goods buried with it, nor 
hellish bowlings over the dead, but a patient 
resigning of it to him that gave it. There were 
some English at the burial, and many Indians 
to whom I spake something of the Resurrection ; 
and as we were going away, one of the Indians 
told me he was much refreshed in being freed 
from their old customes, as also to hear of the 
Resurrection of good men and their children to 
be with God." 

One of the ' meeting-Indians' said that ' if all 
^he world, the riches, plenty, and pleasures of it 
were presented without God, or God without all 
these, I would take God.' 

Another said, ' If the greatest Sagamore in 
the land should take him in his arms, and 
proffer him his love, his riches and gifts, to turn 
him from his ways, he would not go with him 
from the way of God.' 

One of them was heard, of his own accord, 



LIFE OF J II X ELIOT. 171 

in complaining against head knowledge and lip 
prayers, without heart holiness, loathing the 
condition of such a man, saying, I 'desire my 
heart may taste of the word of God, repent of 
my sins, and lean upon the Redemption of the 
Lord Jesus Christ.' 

The following is a letter from a good man in 
this country to a friend in England, written 
about the year 1650. 

' The best News I can write you from New-Eng- 
land is, the Lord is indeed converting the Indians^ 
and for the refreshing of your heart, and the 
hearts of all the godly with you ; I have sent 
you the Relation of one Indian of two yeares 
profession, that I took from his owne mouth by 
an Interpreter, because he cannot speak or un- 
derstand one word of English. 

THE FIRST QUESTION WAS ; 

Q. How did you come first to any sight of 
sinne ? 

A. His answer was, Before the Lord did 
ever bring any English to us, my Conscience 
was exceedingly troubled for sin, but after Mr. 
Mayhem came to preach, and had been here 
some time, one chiefe Sagamore did imbrace 



I 



172 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

the Gospel, and I hearing of him, I went to him, 
and prayed him to speake something to me con- 
cerning God, and the more I did see of God, the 
more I did see my sinne, and I went away 
rcjoycing, that I knew any thing of God, and 
also that I saw my sinne. 

Q. I pray what hurt doe you see in sinne ? 

A. Sin, sayth he, is a continuall sicknesse in 
my heart. 

Q. What further evill doe you see in sinne ? 

A. I see it to be a breach of all Gods Com- 
mandements. 

Q. Doe you see any punishment due to man 
for sinne ? 

A. Yea, sayth he, I see a righteous punish- 
ment from God due to man for sinne, which 
shall be by the Devills in a place like unto fire 
(not that I speake of materiall fire, saith he) 
where man shall be for ever dying and never 
dye. 

Q. Have you any hope to escape this pun- 
ishment ? 

A. While I went on in the way of Indianisme 
I had no hope, but did verily believe I should 
goe to that place, but now I have a little hope, 
and hope I shall have more. 

Q. By what meanes doe you look for any 
hope ? 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 173 

A. Sayth he, by the satisfaction of Christ. 

I prayed the Interpreter, to tell him from mee 
that I would have him thinke much of the satis- 
faction of Christ, (and so he told him) I prayed 
him to returne mee his Answer. 

A. I thanke him kindly for his good Coun- 
sell, it doth my heart good, sayd he, to heare 
any man speake of Christ. 

Q. What would you thinke if the Lord should 
save you from misery ? 

A. If the Lord, said he, would save me from 
all the sinne that is in my heart, and from that 
misery, I should exceedingly love God, and, saith 
he, I should love a man that should doe mee any 
good, much more the Lord, if he should doe this 
for mee. 

Q. Doe you thinke that God will doe you 
any good for any good that is in you ? 

A. Though I beleeve that God loves man that 
leaves his sinne, yet I beleeve it is for Christ's 
sake. 

Q. Doe you see that at any time God doth 
answer your prayers ? 

A. Yea, sayth he, I take every thing as an 
Answer of prayer. 

Q. But what speciall answer, have you taken 
notice of? 

A. Once my wife being three dayes and three 
15=^ 



174 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

nights in labour, I was resolved never to leave 
praying till she had deliverance, and at last God 
did it, and gave her a sonne, and I called his 
name Returning, because all the while I went 
on in Indiaiiisme I was going from God, but 
now the Lord hath brought mee to him backe 
againe. 

By this time Captaine Gooking came to us, 
and he asked him this Question : 

Q. What he would thinke if he should finde 
more affliction and trouble in God's wayes, than 
he did in the way of Indianisme. 

A. His answer was, when the Lord did first 
turne me to himselfe and his wayes, he stripped 
mee as bare as my skinne, and if the Lord 
should strip me as bare as my skinne againe, 
and so big Saggamore should come to mee, and 
say, I will give you so big Wampom, so big 
Beaver, and leave this way, and turne to us 
againe : I would say, take your riches to your 
selfe, I would never forsake God and his wayes 
againe. 

This is a Relation taken by my selfe, 

William French.' 

There was a great fishing place at one of the 
falls of the Merrimack, where the Indians assem- 
bled in great numbers in the spring of the year, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 175 

and Mr. Eliot went to meet them. He hired a 
Nashaway or Lancaster Indian to beat down a 
path for him from Roxbury through the woods, 
and to notch the trees that he might find his 
way through. His Church were concerned for 
his safety, on account of difficulties between two 
tribes through which his path lay. A Sachem 
with twenty men did escort for him, and the 
journey occupied three days. " It pleased God,'' 
he says, " to exercise us with such tedious rain 
and bad weather, that we were extreme wet, in- 
somuch that I was not dry night nor day from 
the third day of the week to the sixth, but so 
traveled, and at night pull off my boots, wring 
my stockings, and on with them again. My 
horse was tired, so that I was forced to let him 
go without a rider and take one of the men's 
horses, which I took along with me. Yet God 
stept in and helped. I considered that word of 
God, ' Endure hardness as a good soldier of Je- 
sus Christ.' " 

It is not surprising that the questions proposed 
by the Indians should have excited so much 
interest among their English teachers, and the 
friends in England to whom they were commu- 
nicated. Should similar questions be reported 
to us from a tribe of people among whom our 



176 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

missionaries had effected an entrance, we should 
feel that there was great promise of success 
among that people. It seems that many in 
England doubted the practicability of converting 
the North American savages. They were 
greatly surprised at the communications from 
Mr. Eliot ; they saw that nothing was too hard 
for the Almighty, that Christ could save unto 
the uttermost, all who come unto God by him, 
that the Gospel was suited to the nature of man 
in every condition, that the story of the cross 
moved the heart of the savage as well as the 
civilized, and that Mr. Eliot's reflection after 
his first eflbrts in preaching at Nonantum was 
true, " That there is no need of miraculous or 
extraordinary gifts in seeking the salvation of 
the most depraved of the human family." 

The Sudbury, Concord, Lancaster, Medford, 
and Dedham Indians had all in a few years re- 
ceived the Gospel from Nonantum. In visiting 
that interesting spot we cannot but say, " From 
you sounded out the word of the Lord." 

A pious Indian from Martha's Vineyard visited 
the Indians of Merrimack weare. After he had 
been there, the Merrimack Indians stated this 
case to Mr. Eliot, for an explanation. ' If a 
strange Indian comes among us whom we never 
saw before, yet if he pray unto God we do ex- 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 177 

ceedingly love him. But if my own brother, 
dwelling a great way ofT, come unto us, he not 
praying to God, though we love him, yet noth- 
ing so as we love that other stranger who doth 
pray unto God,' 



178 LJFE OF JOHN ELIOT 



CHAPTER VII. 

Natick. The Indians build abridge. Scenery of Charles River. The 
Arsenal at Walerlown. Indian names. Mis. Sigourney's Lines. 
Gov. Endicotl's Letter. Proceedings preparatory to forming an 
Indian Church. Confessions ofseveral Indians. Indian Catechism. 
Number in the Indian Church at Natick. Eliot's Indian Grammar. 
His Indian Bible. Remarks upon it. A copy sent to Charles II. 
Richard Baxter's remark. Further observations on the Indian 
Bible. 14 places of praying Indians, in 1660. Mr. Bancroft's 
testimony. Indian Youths at Harvard College. 

We come now to another stage in the history of 
the Indian mission. 

It has already been said that in 1650 Mr. Eliot 
obtained a grant of land for the Indians, for the 
purpose of building houses and organizing a 
town government. The place selected, was called 
Natick, which means a place of hills. There 
the Indians began to build houses, each house 
having a piece of land attached to it for agricul- 
ture. One large building was erected to be the 
property of the town, the lower part to be used 
for a school-room and place of worship, the up- 
per room to be a place of deposit for skins and 
articles of public property, with a bed for Mr. 
Eliot. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 179 

In one of his letters to friends in England, 
Mr. Eliot says, 

" There is a great river which divideth 
between their planting grounds and dwelling 
place, through which they easily wade in sum- 
mer, yet in the spring it is deep and unfit for 
daily passing over, especially of women and 
children." He proposed to the Indians that they 
should make a foot bridge over it, which was 
accordingly built, and was ninety feet long and 
nine feet high. AVhen it was finished, Mr. Eliot 
called the Indians together, prayed, and gave 
thanks to God, and taught them out of a portion 
of Scripture. He then told them that as it had 
been hard and tedious labor in the water, if any 
of them desired wages for their work he would 
give it to them, yet considering the work 
was for their own use, if they should do all that 
labor in love, he should take it well and remem- 
ber it. 

They replied that they were far from desiring 
any wages for doing their own work, and on the 
contrary were thankful for their employment, — 
at which Mr. Eliot praised them for their readi- 
ness and ingenuity at such work. This bridge 
is said to have lasted longer than one which the 
English built about the same time at Dedham. 

It would be interesting if we could identify 



180 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

some of the favorite places of the Indians in 
this vicinity. It is pleasant to think that they 
were often grouped together at that most charm- 
ing point where the Charles River bends round 
the arsenal at Watertown. No one who has 
stood on the bridge at that place on a summer 
morning when the mists were rising from the 
stream, or in the after part of the day, when the 
sun was in the right position over the curving 
parts of the stream to make their outlines bril- 
liant as gold in the green meadow, can have 
failed to think that had such scenery occurred 
to him in Italy or Scotland, he would have 
found it celebrated in the works of the poet and 
painter. We have only to take journeys about 
home to find in the part of the country where 
we live, views and scenes both natural and his- 
torical of thrilling interest. It is easy to imag- 
ine the light canoe borne rapidly along the 
winding vales of the Charles River; we meet 
with Indian names in almost every village 
which is watered by that interesting stream, as 
well as in other places. Wrentham has its Nuck- 
up hill ; Norwich its Quenaboag and Shetucket 
river ; Auburn its Boggachoog brook ; Lancas- 
ter its Weshakum ponds ; and Natick its Pegan 
plain. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 



181 



The following lines by Mrs. Sigourney may 
appropriately be introduced here. 

INDIAN NAMES. 

" How can the red man be forgotten, while so 
many of our states and territories, bays, lakes and 
rivers, are indelibly stamped by names of their 
giving?" 

Ye say, that all have passed away, 

That noble race and brave, 
That their light canoes have vanished 

From off the crested wave ; 
That 'mid the forests where they roamed, 

There rings no hunter's shout ; 
But their name is on their waters, 

Ye may not wash it out. 

'Tis where Ontario's billow, 

Like Ocean's surge is curled. 
Where strong Niagara's thunders wake 

The echo of the world, 
Where red Missouri bringeth 

Rich tributes from the west, 
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps. 

On green Virginia's breast. 

Ye say their cone-like cabins. 

That clustered o'er the vale, 
Have fled away like withered leaves, 

Before the autumn gale ; 
But their memory liveth on your hill», 

Their baptism on your shore, 
Your everlasting rivers speak 

Their dialect of yore. 

VOL. III. 16 



182 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Old Massachusetts wears it 

Within her lordly crown, 
And broad Ohio bears it 

Amid her young renown ; 
Connecticut hath wreathed it, 

Where her quiet foliage waves, 
And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse, ^ 

Through all her ancient caves. 

Wachuset hides its linger ng voice, 

Within his rocky heart, 
And Alleghany graves its tone 

Throughout his lofty chart; 
Monadiiock on his forehead hoar, 

Doth seal the sacred trust ; 
Your mountains build their monuments, 

Though ye destroy their dust. 

The Society for Propagating the Gospel 
among the Indians of North America, an account 
of which will be found in the appendix to this 
volume, published a letter addressed to them by- 
Governor Endicott, of Massachusetts. It is inter- 
esting as a testimony to the advancement which 
the Indians had made in religion and civilization, 
and as a specimen of the personal interest 
which good rulers in former times took in the 
promotion of the kingdom of Christ in the earth. 
The letter is here printed as it is written, with 
the Introduction by the Society : 

•' The next Letter you meet withall came from 
the present Governour of the Massachiisets, 



LIFE OF JOHN K L I O T . 183 

directed to the President of our Corporation, 
and another of the Members thereof, which 
wee thought good to publish, that every 
Christian Reader may partake in the same 
consolation, wherewith he and we are com- 
forted ; and joyne willi us in prayer to the 
Lord of the Harvest, that he would provide 
more Labourers to enter upon this soul-saving- 
worke, and enlarge the hearts of all his peo- 
ple in this Nation towards the same." 

*' Much honoured and beloved in the Lord Jesus : 

I Esteeme it not the least of God's mercies 
that hath stirred up the hearts of any of the peo- 
ple of God to be instrumentall in the inlarging 
of the Kinsfdome of his deare Sonne here 
amongst the Heathen Indians^ which was one 
end of our comming hither, and it is not frus- 
trated. It was prophesied of old, and now be- 
gins to be accomplished, Psal. 2: 8. Neither 
can I but acknowledge the unspeakable good- 
nesse of God that gives us favour in the sight 
of our Countreymen to helpe on with so large a 
hand 'of bounty, so glorious a work, provoked 
thereunto by your worthy selves, the chiefe 
Actors of so good a designe, let me (with leave) 
say confidently, you will never have cause to 



184 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

repent it ; For the work is Gods and he doth 
owne it, the labour there hath been yours, and 
your Master will reward it. I think Religion 
and Conscience binde me to seek unto God for 
you, and to praise him with you, for what is al- 
ready begun. The Foundation is laid, and such 
a one that I verily beleeve the gates of Hell shall 
never prevaile against. I doubt not but the 
building will goe on apace, which I hope will 
make glad the hearts of Thousands. Truly 
Gentlemen, had you been eare and eye-witnesses 
of what I heard and saw on a Lecture-day 
amongst them about three weeks since, you 
could not but be affected therewith as I was. 
To speak truly I could hardly refrain tears from 
very joy to see their diligent attention to the 
word first taught by one of the Indians, who 
before his Exercise prayed for the manner 
devoutly and reverently (the matter I not so 
well understanding) but it was with such rever- 
ence, zeale, good affection, and distinct utter- 
ance, that I could not but admire it ; his Prayer 
was about a quarter of an houre or more, as we 
judged it; then he took his Text, and Mr. Eliot 
their Teacher told us that were English, the 
place (there were some Ministers and diverse 
oilier godly men there that attended me thither) 
his Text was in, Matth. 13 : 44, 45, 46. [The 



LIFE OF JOHN K L 1 O T . 185 

kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure, 6cc. 
And to a niercliant man, &cc.] He continued in 
his Exercise full halfe an hourc or more, as I 
judged ii, iiis gravity and utterance was indeed 
very commendable ; which being done Mr. Eliot 
taught in the Indian tongue about three quarters 
of an hour as neer as I could guesse ; the In- 
dians which were iri number men and women 
neer about one hundred, seemed the most of 
them so to attend him, (the men especially) as 
if they would loose nothing of what was taught 
them, which reflected much upon some of our 
English hearers. After all there was a Psalme 
sung in the Indian tongue, and hidian meeter, 
but to an English tune, read by one of them- 
selves, that the rest might follow, and he read it 
very distinctly w'ithout missing a word as we 
could judge, and the rest sang chearfully, and 
prettie tuneablie. I rid on purpose thither being 
distant from my dwelling about thirty eight, or 
forty miles, and truly I account it one of the best 
Journeyes I made these many years. Some few 
dayes after I desired Mr. Eliot briefly to write 
me the substance of the Indians Exercise, which 
when he went thither again, namely to Naticke, 
where the Indians dwell, and where the hidian 
taught, he read what he remembered of it first 
to their School-Master who is an Indian, and 
16=^ 



186 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

teachcth them and their Children to write, and 
I saw him write also in E?iglish, who doth it 
true and very legible, and asked him if it were 
right, and he said yea, also he read it unto 
others, and to the man himselfe, who also 
owned it. To tell you of their industry and in- 
genuitie in building of an house after the E?ig- 
lish manner, the hewing aad squaring of their 
tymber, the sawing of the boards themselves, 
and making of a Chimney in it, making of their 
ground-sells and wall-plates, and mortising, and 
letting in the studds into them artificially, there 
being but one English man a Carpenter to shew 
them, being but two dayes with them, is remarke- 
able. They have also built a Fort there with 
halfe trees cleft about eight or ten inches over, 
about ten or twelve foot high, besides what is 
intrencht in the ground, which is above a quar- 
ter of an acre of ground, as I judge. They have 
also built a foot bridge over Charles Kivers, with 
Groundsells and Spurres to uphold it against the 
strength of the Flood and Ice in Winter ; it stood 
firme last Winter, and I think it will stand many 
Winters. They have made Drummes of their 
owne with heads and brases very neatly and 
artificially, all which shews they are industrious 
and ingenuous. And they intend to build a 
Water-Mill the next Summer, as I was told 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 187 

when I was with them. Some of them have 
learnt to mow grasse very well. I shall no 
further trouble yon with any more Relation at 
this time concerning them. But a word or two 
further with your patience concerning other hi- 
dians. The work of God amongst the Indians 
at Martins Vineyard, is very hopefull and pros- 
perous also. I mist of Mr. Mayhew their 
Teacher, who was lately at Boston, and there- 
fore cannot give you a particular account thereof 
at this present time ; yet I cannot but acquaint 
you what other motions there are touching other 
Indians. There came to us upon the 20th of 
this instant Moneth, at the Generall Court one 
Fummakummim Sachem of Qunnubbdgge, 
dwelling amongst or neer to the NarragaTisets, 
who offered himselfe and his Men to worship 
God, and desired that some English may be 
sent from the Massachusets Government to plant 
his River, that thereby he may be partaker of 
Government, and may be instructed by the Eng- 
lish to know God. We shall I hope take some 
care and course about it, and I hope we shall 
have more help to carry on that work also ; 
For there are some Schollers amongst us who 
addict themselves to the study of the Indian 
Tongue. The Lord in mercy recompence it 



188 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

into your Bosomes, all that labour of love vouch- 
safed to the poor Indians, which are the hearty- 
prayers, and earnest desire of, much honoured, 
Boston the 27th of 
the Eight. 1651. 

Your loving Friend in all 
service of Christ. 

John Endecott." 

The prudence and caution of Mr. Eliot in his 
proceedings with regard to the formation of a 
Church among the Indians are not a little re- 
markable. He says, 

" In way of preparation of them thereunto, I 
did this Summer call forth sundry of them in 
the dayes of our public Assemblies in Gods 
Worship ; sometimes on the Sabbath when I 
could be with them, and sometimes on Lecture 
dales, to make confession before the Lord of 
their former sins, and of their present knowledg 
of Christ, and experience of his Grace ; which 
they solemnly doing, I wrote down their Con- 
fessions : which having done, and being in my 
own heart hopeful that there was among them fit 
matter for a Church, I did request all the Elders 
about us to hear them reade, that so they might 
give me advice what to do in this great and 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 189 

solemn business ; which being done on a day 
appointed for the purpose, it pleased God to give 
their Confessions such acceptance in their hearts, 
as that they saw nothing to hinder their pro- 
ceeding, to try how the Lord would appear 
therein. Whereupon, after a day of Fasting 
and Prayer among ourselves, to seek ihe Lord 
in that behalf, there was another day of Fasting 
and Prayer appointed, and publick notice thereof, 
and of the names of Indians were to confess, and 
enter into Covenant that day, was given to all 
the Churches about us, to seek the Lord yet 
further herein, and to make solemn Confessions 
of Christ his Truth and Grace, and further to try 
whether the Lord would vouchsafe such grace 
unto them, as to give them acceptance among 
the Saints, into the fellowship of Church-Estate, 
and enjoyment of those Ordinances which the 
Lord hath betrusted his Churches wdthal. That 
day was the thirteenth of the eighth month. 

When the Assembly was met, the first part of 
the day was spent in Prayers unto God, and 
exercise in the Word of God ; in which my self 
first and after that two of the Indians did Exer- 
cise ; and so the time was spent till after ten or 
near eleven of the clock. Then addressing our 
selves unto the further work of the day, I first 
requested the reverend Elders (many being pres- 



190 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

ent) that they would ask them Questions touch- 
ing the fundamental Points of Religion, that 
thereby they might have some tryal of their 
knowledg, and better that way, than if them- 
selves should of themselves declare what they 
beleeve, or than if I should ask them Questions 
in these matters : After a little conference here- 
about, it was concluded, That they should first 
make confession of their experience in the Lords 
Work upon their hearts, because in so doing, it 
is like something will be discerned of iheir 
knowledg in the Doctrines of Religion : and if 
after those Confessions there should yet be cause 
to inquire further touching any Point of Religion 
it might be filly done at last. Whereupon we 
so proceeded, and called them forth in order to 
make confession. It was moved in the Assem- 
bly by Reverend Mr. Wilson, that their former 
Confessions also, as well as these which they 
made at present, might be read unto the Assem- 
bly, because it was evident that they were 
daunted much, to speak before so great and 
grave an Assembly as that was, but time did not 
permit it so to be then : yet now in my writing 
of their Confessions 1 v/ill take that course, that 
so it may appear what encouragement there was 
to proceed so far as we did ; and that such as 
may reade these their Confessions, may the bet- 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 191 

ter discern of the reality of the Grace of Christ 
in them." 

He afterwards says, 

" In the year 52 I perceiving the grace of God 
in sundry of them, and some poor measure of 
fitnesse (as I was perswaded) for the enjoyment 
of Church-fellowship, and Ordinances of Jesus 
Christ, I moved in that matter, according as I 
have in the Narration thereof, briefly declared. 
In the year 53 I moved not that way, for these 
Reasons. 

I having sent their Confessions to be published 
in England, I did much desire to hear what ac- 
ceptance the Lord gave unto them, in the hearts 
of his people there, who daily labour at the 
Throne of grace, and by other expressions of 
their loves, for an holy birth of this work of the 
Lord, to the praise of Christ, and the inlarge- 
ment of his Kingdome. As also my desire was, 
that by such Books as might be sent hither, the 
knowledge of their Confessions might be spread 
here, unto the better and fuller satisfaction of 
many, then the transacting thereof in the pres- 
ence of some could doe. These Books came by 
the latter Ships (as I remember) that were bound 
for New England, and were but newly out 
when they set saile, and therefore I had not that 
answer that year, which my soule desired, 



192 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

though something I had which gave encourage- 
ment, and was a tast of what I have more fully 
heard from severall this year, praised be the 
Lord. 

Besides there fell a great damping and dis- 
couragement upon us by a jealousie too deeply 
apprehended, though utterly groundlesse, viz. 
That even these praying Indians were in a con- 
spiracy with others, and with the Dutch, to doe 
mischief to the English. In which matter, 
though the ruling part of the People looked oth- 
erwise upon them, yet it was no season for me 
to stir or move in this matter, when the waters 
were so troubled. This businesse needeth a 
calmer season, and I shall account it a favour of 
God when ever he shall please to cause his face 
to shine upon us in it. Yet this I did the last 
year, after the Books had been come a season, 
there being a great meeting at Bosto7i, from other 
Colonies as well as our owne, and the Commis- 
sioners being there, I thought it necessary to 
take that opportunity to prepare and open the 
way in a readinesse against this present year, by 
making this Proposition unto them ; namely. 
That they having now seen their confessions, if 
upon further triall of them in point of knoivl- 
edge, they be found to have a competent measure 
of understanding in the fundamentall points of 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 193 

Religion; and also, if there he due testimony 
of their conversation, that they walke in a 
Christian manner according to their light, so 
that Religion is to be seen in their lives ; 
whether then it be according to God, and ac- 
ceptable to his people, that they be called up unto 
Church estate? Unto which I had I blesse the 
Lord, a generall approbation. 

Accordingly this year 54 I moved the Elders, 
that they would give me advice and assistance 
in this great businesse, and that they would at a 
fit season examine the hidians in point of their 
knowledge, because we found by the former 
triall, that a day will be too little (if the Lord 
please to call them on to Church-fellowship) to 
examine them in points of Knowledge, and hear 
their Confessions, and guide them into the holy 
Covenant of the Lord. Seeinof all these thinfj^s 
are to be transacted in a strange language, and 
by Interpreters, and with such a people as they 
be in these their first beginnings. But if they 
would spend a day on purpose to examine them 
in their knowledge there would be so much the 
more liberty to doe it fully and throughly, (as 
such a work ought to be) as also when they may 
be called to gather into Church-Communion, it 
may suffice that some one of them should make 
a Doctrinall Confession before the Lord and his 

VOL. III. 17 



194 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

people, as the rule of faith which they build 
upon, the rest attesting their consent unto the 
same : And themselves (the Elders I mean, if 
the Lord so far assist the Indians, as to give 
them satisfaction) might testifie that upon Ex- 
amination they have found a competency of 
knowledge in them to inable them unto such a 
work and state. Arid thus the work might be 
much shortned, and more comfortably expedited 
in one day. I found no unreadinesse in the 
Elders to further this work. 

They concluded to attend the work, and for 
severall Reasons advised that the place should 
be at Roxbury, and not at Natick, and that the 
Indians should be called thither, the time they 
left to me to appoint, in such a season as 
wherein the Elders may be at best liberty from 
other publick occasions. The time appointed 
was the 13 of the 4 moneth ; meanwhile I dis- 
patched Letters unto such as had knowledge in 
the Tongue, requesting that they would come 
and help in interpretation, or attest unto the 
truth of my Interpretations. I sent also for my 
Brother Mayku, who accordingly came, and 
brought an Interpreter with him. Others whom 
I had desired, came not. I informed the Indians 
of this appointment, and of the end it was ap- 
pointed for, which they therefore called, and still 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 195 

doe, when they have occasion to speak of it 
Natootomuhtede hesuk, A day of asking Ques- 
tions^ or, A day of Examination. I advised 
them to prepare for it, and to pray earnestly 
about it, that they might be accepted among 
Gods people, if it were the will of God. 

It pleased God so to guide, that there was a 
publick Fast of all the Churches, betwixt this our 
appointment, and the accomplishment thereof: 
which day they kept, as the Churches did, and 
this businesse of theirs was a Principall matter 
in their Prayers." 

It will be useful, as well as interesting, to 
give some of the " Confessions of Indians" 
which were made and considered in preparation 
for their entering into the Church state. 

CONFESSION OF TOTHERSWAMP. 

*' Before I prayed unto God, the English, when 
I came unto their houses, often said unto me, 
Pray to God ; but I having many friends who 
loved me, and I loved them, and they cared not 
for praying to God, and therefore I did not : But 
I thought in my heart, that if my friends should 
die, and I live, I then would pray to God; soon 
after, God so wrought, that they did almost all 
die, few of them left ; and then ray heart feared, 



196 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

and I thought, that now I will pray unto God, 
and yet I was ashamed to pray ; and if I eat and 
did not pray, I was ashamed of that also ; so 
that 1 had a double shame upon me : Then you 
came unto us, and taught us, and said unto us, 
Fray unto God ; and after that, my heart grew 
strong, and I was no more ashamed to pray, but 
I did take up praying to God ; yet at first I did 
not think of God and eternal Life, but only that 
the English should love me and I loved them : 
But after 1 came to learn what sin was, by the 
Commandments of God, and then I saw all my 
sins, lust, gaming, &;c. (he named more.) You 
taught. That Christ knoweth all our hearts, and 
seelh what is in them, if humility, or anger, or 
evil thoughts, Christ seeth all that is in the 
heart ; then my heart feared greatly, because 
God was angry for all my sins; yea, now my 
heart is full of evil thoughts, and my heart runs 
away from God, therefore my heart feareth and 
mourneth. Every day I see sin in my heart; 
one man brought sin .into the World, and I am 
full of that sin, and I break Gods Word every 
day. I see I deserve not pardon, for the first 
mans sinning; I can do no good, for I am like 
the Devil, nothing but evil thoughts, and words, 
and works. I have lost all likeness to God, and 
goodness, and therefore every day I sin against 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 197 

God, and I deserve death and damnation : The 
first man brought sm first, and I do every day- 
add to that sin, more sins ; but Christ hath done 
for us all righteousness, and died for us because 
of our sins, and Christ teacheth us, That if we 
cast away our sins, and trust in Christ, then 
God will pardon all our sins ; this I beleeve 
Christ hath done, I can do no righteousness, but 
Christ hath done it for me ; this I beleeve, and 
therefore I do hope for pardon. When I first 
heard the Commandments, I then took up pray- 
ing to God and cast off sin. Again, When I 
heard, and understood Redemption by Christ, 
then I beleeved Jesus Christ to take away my 
sins : every Commandment taught me sin, and 
my duty to God. When you ask me why do I 
love God ? I answer, Because he giveth me all 
outward blessings, as food, clothing, children, all 
gifts of strength, speech, hearing; especially 
that he giveth us a Minister to teach us, and 
giveth us Government; and my heart feareth 
lest Government should reprove me ; but the 
greatest mercy of all is Christ, to give us pardon 
and life." 



17# 



198 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 



" TOTHERSWAMP 

The Confession which he made on the Fast day 
before the great Assembly was as folloiceth : 

I Confess in the presence of the Lord, before 
I prayed, many were my sins, not one good 
word did I speak, not one good thought did I 
think, not one good action did I doe : I did act 
all sins, and full was my heart of evil thoughts ; 
when the English did tell me of God, I cared 
not for it, I thought it enough if they loved me : 
I had many friends that loved me, and I thought 
if they died I would pray to God : and afterward 
it so came to pass ; then was my heart ashamed, 
to pray I was ashamed, and if I prayed not, I 
was ashamed ; a double shame was upon me : 
when God by you taught us, very much ashamed 
was my heart ; then you taught us that Christ 
knoweth all our hearts : therefore truly he saw 
my thoughts, and I had thought, if my kindred 
should die I would pray to God ; therfore they 
dying, I must now pray to God ; and therefore 
my heart feared, for I thought Christ knew my 
thoughts: then I heard you teach, The first 
man God made ivas named Adam, Sf God made 
a Covenant with him, Do and live, thou and thy 
Children; if thou do not thou must die., thou 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 199 

and thy Ckildre?i : And we are Children of 
Adam poor sinners, therefore we all have sinned, 
for we have broke Gods Covenant, therefore evil 
is my heart, therefore God is very angry with 
me, we sin against him every day ; but tiiis 
great mercy God hath given us, he hath given 
us his only Son, and promiseth, That whosoever 
beleeveih in Christ shall be saved : for Christ 
hath dyed for us in our stead, for our sins, and 
he hath done for us all the words of God, for 1 
can do no good act, only Christ can, and only 
Christ hath done all for us; Christ hath de- 
served pardon for us, and risen again, he hath 
ascended to God, and doth ever pray for us ; 
therefore all Beleevers Souls shall goe to Heaven 
to Christ. But when I heard that word of 
Christ, Christ said Repent and Beleeve, and 
Christ seeth who Repenteth, then I said, dark 
and weak is my Soul, and I am one in darkness, 
I am a very sinful man, and now I pray to 
Christ for life. Hearing you teach that Word 
that the Scribes and Pharisees said Why do thy 
Disciples break the Tradition of the Fathers ? 
Christ answered. Why do you make void the 
Commandinents of God ? Then my heart feared 
that I do so, when I teach the Indians, because 
I cannot teach them right, and thereby make 
the word of God vain. Again, Christ said If 



200 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

the blind lead the blind they will both fall into 
the ditch; Therefore I feared that I am one 
blind, and when I teach other Indians I shal 
caus them to fall into the ditch. This is the 
love of God to me, that he giveth me all mercy 
in this world, and for them al 1 am thankfuU ; 
but I confess I deserve Hell; I cannot deliver 
my self, but I give my Soul and my Flesh to 
Christ, and I trust my soul with him for he is 
my Redeemer, and I desire to call upon him 
while I live. 

This was his Confession which ended, Mr. 
Allin further demanded of him this Ques- 
tion, How he found his heart, now in the 
matter of Repentance? 
His answer was ; I am ashamed of all my 
sins, my heart is broken for them and melteth 
in me, I am angry with my self for my sins, 
and I pray to Christ to take away my sins, and 
I desire that they may be pardoned. 

But it was desired that further Question 
might be forborn, lest time would be 
wanting to here them all speak." 

9 

The following is the Confession of Waban, 
(or the wind,) the man in whose wigwam 
Mr. Eliot preached to the Indians in the 
beginning of his ministry among them, and 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 201 

who, from Mr. Eliot's text, " Prophesy unto the 
wind," &c., supposed that the message of God 
was specially directed to himself. 



CONFESSION OF WABAN. 

" Before I heard of God, and before the English 
came into this Country, many evil things my 
heart did work, many thoughts I had in my 
heart ; I wished for riches, I wished to be a 
witch, I wished to be a Sachem ; and many such 
other evils were in my heart : Then when the 
English came, still my heart did the same 
things ; when the English taught me of God (I 
coming to their Houses) I would go out of their 
doors, and many years I knew nothing ; when 
the English taught me I was angry with them : 
But a little while agoe after the great sikness, I 
considered what the English do ; and I had some 
desire to do as they do; and after that I began 
to work as they work ; and then I wondered 
how the English come to be so strong to labor; 
then I thought I shall quickly die, and I feared 
lest I should die before I prayed to God ; then I 
thought, if I prayed to God in our Language, 
whether could God understand my prayers in 
our Language ; therefore I did ask Mr. Jackson^ 



202 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

and Mr. Mahit, If God understood prayers in 
our Language ? They answered me God doth 
understand all Languages in the World. But I 
do not know how to confess, and little do I know 
of Christ; I fear I shall not beleeve a great 
while, and very slowly ; I do not know what 
grace is in my heart, there is but little good in 
me ; but this I know, That Christ hath kept all 
Gods Commandements for us, and that Christ 
doth know all our hearts ; and now I desire to 
repent of all my sins : I neither have done, nor 
can do the Commandements of the Lord, but I 
am ashamed of all I do, and I do repent of all 
my sins, even of all that I do know of: I desire 
that I may be converted from all my sins, and 
that I might beleeve in Christ, and I desire him ; 
I dislike my sins, yet I do not truly pray to God 
in my heart : no matter for good words, all is 
the true heart ; and this day I do not so much 
desire good words, as throughly to open my 
heart : I confess I can do nothing, but deserve 
damnation ; only Christ can help me and do for 
me. But I have nothing to say for my self that 
is good ; I judg that I am a sinner, and cannot 
repent, but Christ hath deserved pardon for us." 

* This Conjession being not so satisfactory as 
was desired, Mr. Wilson testified, that he 



LfFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 203 

spake these latter expressions with tears, 
which I observed not, because I attended to 
writing; but I gave this testimony of hiin, 
That his conversation was without offence 
to the English, so far as I knew, and among 
the Indians it was exemplar : his gift is not 
so much in expressing himself this way, 
but in other respects useful and eminent ; it 
being demanded in what respects, I an- 
swered to this purpose. That his gift lay in 
Ruling, Judging of Cases, wherein he is 
patient, constant, and prudent, insomuch 
that he is much respected among them, for 
they have chosen him a Ruler of Fifty, and 
he Ruleth well according to his measure. 
It was further said, they thought he had 
been a great drawer on to Religion ; I re- 
plyed, so he was in his way, and did pre- 
vail with many ; and so it rested. 



♦* CONFESSION OF WILLIAM, OF SUDBURY. 

I CONFESS that before I prayed, I committed all 
manner of sins, and served many gods : when 
the English came first, I going to their houses, 
they spake to me of your God, but when I heard 
of God, my heart hated it ; but when they said 



204 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

the Devil was my god, I was angry, because I 
was proud : when I came to their houses I hated 
to hear of God, I loved lust in my own house 
and not God, I loved to pray to many gods. 
Five years ago, I going to English houses, and 
they speaking of God, I did a little like of it, 
yet when I went again to my own house, I did 
all manner of sins, and in my heart I did act all 
sins though I would not be seen by man. Then 
going to your house, I more desired to hear of 
God ; and my heart said, I will pray to God so 
long as I live : then I went to the Minister Mr. 
Browns house, and told him I would pray as 
long as I lived : but he said I did not say it from 
my heart, and I beleeve it. When Waban 
spake to me that I should pray to God, I did so. 
But I had greatly sinned against God, and had 
not beleeved the Word but was proud : but then 
I was angry with my self, and loathed my self, 
and thought God will not forgive me my sins. 
For when I had been abroad in the woods I 
would be very angry, and would lye unto men, 
and I could not find the way how to be a good 
man : then I beleeved your teaching, That when 
good men die, the Angels carry their souls to 
God ; but evil men dying, they go to Hell, and 
perish for ever. I thought this a true saying, 
and I promised to God, to pray to God as long 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 205 

as I live. I had a little grief in my heart five 
years ago for my sins : but many were my 
prides ; sometime I was angry with my self, and 
pityed my self; but I thought God would not 
pardon such a proud heart as mine is : I beleeve 
that Christ would have me to forsake my anger; 
I beleeve that Christ hath redeemed us, and I 
am glad to hear those words of God ; and I de- 
sire that I might do al the good waies of God, 
and that I might truly pray unto God : I do now 
want Graces, and these Christ only teacheth us, 
and only Christ hath wrought our redemption, 
and he procureth our pardon for all our sins ; 
and I beleeve that when beleevers dy, Gods 
Angels carry them to Heaven ; but I want faith 
to beleeve the Word of God, and to open my 
Eyes, and to help me to cast away all sins ; and 
Christ hath deserved for me eternall life : I hat'e 
deserved nothing my self: Christ hath deserved, 
all, and giveth me faith to beleeve it." 



" CONFESSION OF MONEQUASSUN, THE 
SCHOOLMASTER. 

I Confess my sorrow for all my sins against 
God, and before men : When I first heard in- 
struction, I beleeved not, but laughed at it, and 

VOL. III. 18 



206 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

scorned praying to God ; afterward, when we 
were taught at Cohannet (that is the place where 
he lived) I still hated praying, and I did think 
of running away, because I cared not for praying 
to God ; but afterwards, because I loved to dwell 
at that place, I would not leave the place, and 
therfore I thought I will pray to God, because I 
would still stay at that place, therefore I prayed 
not for the love of God, but for love of the place 
I lived in ; after that I desired a little to learn 
the Catechisme on the Lecture dales, and I did 
learn the ten Commandements, and after that, all 
the points in the Catechisme; yet afterwards I 
cast them all away again, then was my heart 
filled with folly, and my sins great sins, after- 
wards by hearing, I began to fear, because of my 
many sins, lest the wise men should come to 
know them, and punish me for them ; and then 
again I thought of running away because of my 
many sins : But after that I thought I would 
pray rightly to God, and cast away my sins ; 
then I saw my hypocricy, because I did ask 
some questions, but did not do that which I 
knew: afterward I considered of my question, 
and thought I would pray to God, and would 
consider of some other Question, and I asked 
this Question, How should I get Wisdom? and 
the Answer to it did a little turn my heart from 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 207 



sin, to seek after God ; and I then considered 
that the Word of God was good ; then I prayed 
to God because of the Word of God. Tlie next 
Lecture day you taught that word of God, If any 
man lack Wisdom^ let him ask it of God, who 
giveth freely to them that ask him, and upbraid- 
eth no man, James, 1 : 5. Then again a little 
my heart was turned after God, the Word also 
said, Repent, mourn, and beleeve in Jesus Christ : 
this also helped me on. Then you taught, That 
he that heleeveth not Christ, and repenteth not of 
sin, they are foolish and wicked ; and because 
they beleeve not, they shall perish : then I 
thought my self a fool, because I beleeved not 
Christ, but sinned every day, and after I heard 
the Word greatly broke the Word. But after- 
ward I heard this promise of God, Who ever re- 
penteth and beleeveth in Christ, God will for- ■ 
give him all his sins, he shall not perish ; then I 
thought, that as yet, I do not repent, and be- 
leeve in Christ : then I prayed to God, because 
of this his Promise ; and then I prayed to God, 
for God and for Christ his sake : after that again 
I did a little break the Word of Christ. And 
then I heard some other words of God, which 
shewed me my sins, and my breakings of Gods 
word ; and sometimes I thought God and Christ 
would forgive me, because of the promise to 



208 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

them that beleeve in Christ, and repent of sin, I 
thought I did that wliich God spake in the 
Promise. Then being called to confess, to pre- 
pare to make a Church at Natick, I loved Co- 
haiinet ; but after hearing- this instruction, That 
we should not only he Hearers^ but Doers of the 
Word, then my heart did fear. And afterward 
hearing that in Matthew, Christ saw two breth- 
ren mending their Nets, he said, Follow me and 
I will make you Fishers of men^ presently they 
followed Christ; and when I heard this, I feared, 
because I was not willing to follow Christ to 
Natick; they followed Christ at his Word, but 
I did not, for now Christ saith to ms, follow Me : 
then I was much troubled, and considered of this 
Word of God. Afterward I heard another word, 
the blind men cried after Christ and said. Have 
, mercy on us thou Son of David, but after they 
came to Christ he called them, and asked them, 
What shall I do for you ? they said, Lord open 
our eyes; then Christ had pity on them, and 
opened their eyes, and they followed Christ ; 
when I heard this, my heart was troubled, then 
I prayed to God and Christ, to open mine eyes, 
and if Christ open my eyes, then I shall rejoyce 
to follow Christ : then I considered of both these 
Scriptures, and I a little saw that I must follow 
Christ. And now my heart desireth to make 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 209 

confession of what I know of God, and of my- 
self, and of Christ : I bclceve that there is only 
one God, and that he made and rulelh ail the 
World, and that he the Lord, giveth us al good 
things : I know that God giveth every day all 
good mercies, life, and health, and all ; I have 
not one good thing, but God it is that giveth it 
me, I beleeve that God at first made man like 
God, holy, wise, righteous ; but the first man 
sinned, for God promised him. If thou do my 
Commandements, thou shall live, and thy Chil- 
dren ; hut if thou sin, thou shalt die, thou and 
thy children; this Covenant God made with the 
first man. But the first man did not do the 
Commandements of God he did break Gods 
Word, he beleeved Satan ; and now I am full of 
sin, because the first man brought sin ; dayly I 
am full of sin in my heart : I do not dayly re- 
joyce in Repentance, because Satan worketh 
dayly in my heart, and opposeth Repentance, 
and all good Works ; day and night my heart is 
full of sin. I beleeve that Jesus Christ was born 
of the Virgin Mary; God promised her she 
should bear a Son, and his Name should be 
JESUS, because he shall deliver his people 
from their sins : And when Christ came to 
preach, he said, Repent, because the Kingdom of 

Heaven is at hand ; again Christ taught. Except 
18# 



210 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

ye repent and become as a Utile child, ye shall 
not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven ; there- 
fore humble your selves like one of these little 
children, and great shall be your Kingdom in 
Heaven. Again Christ said, Come unto me all 
ye that are weary and heavy laden ivith sin, and 
I loill give yon rest : take up my Cross and 
Yoak, learn of me for I am meek, and ye shall 
find rest to your souls, for my yoak is easie and 
burden light : these are the Words of Christ 
and I know Christ he is good, but my works are 
evil : Christ his words are good, but I am not 
humble ; but if we be humble and beleeving in 
Christ, he pardons all our sins. I now desire 
to beleeve in Jesus Christ, because of the word 
of Christ, that I may be converted and become 
as a little Child. I confess my sins before God, 
and before Jesus Christ this day ; now I desire 
all my sins may be pardoned ; I now desire re- 
pentance in my heart, and ever to beleeve in 
Christ ; now I lift up my heart to Christ, and 
trust him with it, because I beleeve Christ died 
for us, for all our sins, and deserved for us eter- 
nal life in Heaven, and deserved pardon for all 
our sins. And now I give my soul to Christ 
because he hath redeemed : I do greatly love, 
and like repentance in my heart, and I love to 
beleeve in Jesus Christ, and my heart is broken 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 211 

by repentance : al these things I do like wel of, 
that they may be in my heart, but because 
Christ hath all these to give, I ask them of him 
that he may give me repentance, and faith in 
Christ, and therefore I pray and beseech Christ 
dayly for repentance and faith ; and other good 
waies I beg of Christ dayly to give me : and I 
pray to Christ for al these gifts and graces to 
put them in my heart : and now I greatly thank 
Christ for all these good gifts which he hath 
given me. I know not any thing, nor can do 
any thing that is a good work : even my heart 
is dark dayly in what I should do, and my soul 
dyeth because of my sins, and therefore I give 
my soul to Christ, because my soul is dead in 
sin, and dayly doth commit sin; in my heart I 
sin, and all the members of my body are sinful. 
I beleeve Jesus Christ is ascended to Heaven 
through the clouds, and he will come again from 
Heaven : Many saw Christ go up to Heaven, 
and the Angels said, even so he will come again 
to judg all the world; and therefore I beleeve 
Gods promise. That all men shall rise again 
when Christ cometh again, then all shall rise, 
and all their souls comes again because Christ 
is trusted with them, and keeps their souls, 
therefore I desire my sins may be pardoned; 



212 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

and I beleeve in Christ ; and ever so long as I 
live, I will pray to God, and do all the good 
waies he commandeth." 



" CONFESSIONS OF ROBIN SPEENE. 

I was ashamed because you taught to praj^ to 
God, and I did not take it up ; I see God is an- 
gry with me for all my sins, and he hath afflicted 
me by the death of three of my children, and I 
fear God is still angry, because great are my 
sins, and I fear lest my children be not gone to 
Heaven, because I am a great sinner, yet one of 
my children prayed to God before it died, and 
therefore my heart rejoyceth in that. I remem- 
ber my Pawwawing [for he w^as a Paivivaiv] my 
lust, my gaming, and all my sins ; I know them 
by the Commandements of God, and God heareth 
and seeth them all; I cannot deliv^er my self 
from sin, therefore I do need Christ, because of 
all my sins, I desire pardon, and I beleeve that 
God calls all to come to Christ, and that he de- 
livereth us from sin." 



" His Second Confession. 

I have found out one word more : great are 
my sins, and I do not know how to repent, nor 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 213 

do I know the evil of my sins ; only this one 
word, now I confess I want Christ, this day 1 
want him ; I do not truly beleeve nor repent : I 
see my sin, and I need Christ, but I desire now 
tobe redeemed: and I now ask you this Ques- 
tion What is Redemption? "I answered him, 
" by shewing him our estate by Nature, and 
" desert, the price which Christ paid for us, and 
" how it is to be applied to every particular 
" person; which done, he proceeded in his con- 
fession thus : I yet cannot tell whether God hath 
pardoned my sins, I forget the word of God; 
but this I desire, that my sins may be pardoned, 
but my heart is foolish, and a great part of the 
Word stayeth not in my heart strongly. I de- 
sire to cast all my sins out of my heart : but I 
remember my sins, that I may get them par- 
doned, I think God doth not yet hear my prayers 
in this, because I cannot keep the Word of God, 
only I desire to hear the Word, and that God 
would hear me." 

" His Third Confession. 

One word more I cal to mind. Great is my 
sin ! this saith my heart, I have found this sin, 
when I first heard you teach, that all the world 
from the rising to the sitting Sun should pray to 
God, I then wondered at it, and thought, I being 



214 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

a great sinner, how shal I pray to God ; and 
when I saw many come to the Meeting, I won- 
dred at it : But now I do not wonder at that 
work of God, and therefore I think that I do 
now greatly sin : and now I desire again to 
wonder at Gods Works, and I desire to rejoyce 
in Gods good waies. Now I am much ashamed, 
and fear because I have deserved eternal wrath 
by my sins : my heart is evil, my heart doth 
contrary to God : and this I desire, that I may 
be redeemed, for I cannot help my self, but only 
Jesus Christ hath done al this for me, and I de- 
serve no good, but I beleeve Christ hath deserved 
all for us : and I give my self unto Christ, that 
he may save me, because he knoweth eternal 
life, and can give it ; I cannot give it to my self, 
therefore I need Jesus Christ, my heart is full 
of evil thoughts ; and Christ only can keep my 
soul from them, because he hath paid for my 
deliverance from them." 



*« CONFESSION OF ANTONY. 

Another who made his Confession is named 
Antony, upon whom the Lord was pleased 
the last Winter to lay an heavy stroke ; for he 
and another Indian being at work sawing of 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 215 

Board, and finishing the Peece, they laid it so 
short, and tlic Kowl not so stedfast, insomuch 
that this man being in the Pit directing to lay 
the Piece, and the other above ordering there- 
of, it slipped down into the Pit upon this mans 
head, brake his neather Chap in two, and 
cracked his Skull, insomuch that he was taken 
up half dead, and almost strangled with blood ; 
and being the last day of the week at night I 
had no word until the Sabbath day, then I 
presently sent a Chyrurgion, who took a dis- 
creet order with him ; and God so blessed his 
indeavors, as that he is now well again, 
blessed be the Lord : and whereas I did fear 
that such a blow in their Labor might dis- 
courage them from Labor, I have found it by 
Gods blessing otherwise ; yea this man hath 
performed a great part of the sawing of our 
Meeting-House, and is now sawing upon the 
School-house, and his recovery is an estab- 
lishment of them to go on ; yea, and God 
blessed this blow, to help on the Work of 
Grace in his soul ; as you shall see in his 
Confession, which followeth. 

Before I prayed to God 1 alwaies committed 
sin, but I do not know all my sins, I know but a 
little of the sins I have committed, therefore I 



216 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

thought I could not pray to God, because I knew 
not al my sins before I prayed to God, and since 
I heard of praying to God : formerly when the 
English did bid me pray unto God I hated it, 
and would go out of their houses, when they 
spake of such things to me. I had no delight 
to hear any thing of Gods Word, but in every 
thing I sinned; in my speeches I sinned, and 
every day I broke the Commands of God. After 
I heard of praying to God, that Waban and my 
two brothers prayed to God, yet then I desired 
it not, but did think of running away ; yet I 
feared if I did run away some wicked men 
Avould kill me, but I did not fear God. After 
when you said unto me, pray, my heart thought, 
I will pray ; yet again I thought, I cannot pray 
with my heart, and no matter for praying with 
words only : but when I did pray, I saw more of 
my sins ; yet I did but only see them, I could 
not be aware of them, but still I did commit 
them : and after I prayed to God, I was still full 
of lust, and then a little I feared. Sometimes I 
was sick, and then 1 thought God was angry, 
and then I saw that I did commit all sins : then 
one of my brothers died, and then my heart was 
broken, and after him. another friend, and again 
my heart was broken : and yet after all this I 
broke my praying to God, and put away God, 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 217 

and then I thought I shall never pray to God : 
but after this I was afraid of the Lord, because 
I alwaies broke my praying to God and then my 
heart said, God doth not hear my prayer. 
When I was sick, and recovered again, I thought 
then that God was merciful unto me. Hearing 
that word of God, If you hear the Word of Godj 
and he forgetful hearers, you sin against God ; 
then I thought God will not pardon such a sin- 
ner as I, who dayly did so, and broke my 
praying to God. When I heard the Com- 
mandements, I desired to learn them, and other 
points of Catechism, but my desires were but 
small, and I soon lost it, because I did not desire 
to beleeve : then sometimes I feared Gods anger 
because of al my sins ; I heard the Word and 
understood only this word. All you that hear this 
day, it may he you shall quickly die, and then I 
quickly saw that God was very angry with me. 
Then God brake my head, and by that I saw 
Gods anger ; and then I thought that the true 
God in Heaven is angry with me for my sin, 
even for al my sins, which every day I live, I 
do. When I was almost dead, some body bid 
me now beleeve, because it may be I shal quickly 
die, and I thought I did beleeve, but I did not 
know right beleeving in Christ : then I prayed 
unto God to restore my health. Then I be- 
VOL. III. 19 



218 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

leeved that word, That we must shortly appear 
before Jesus Christ ; then I did greatly fear lest 
if I beleeved not, I should perish for ever. When 
I was neer death, I prayed unto God, Oh Lord 
give vie life, a7id I loill pray to God so long as I 
live, and I said, I will give my self soul, and body 
to Christ : after this, God gave me health, and 
then I thought, truly, God in Heaven is merci- 
ful ; then I much grieved, that I knew so little 
of Gods Word. And now sometimes I am 
angry, and then I fear because I know God 
seeth it ; and I fear, because I promised God 
when I was almost dead, that if he giveth me 
life, I will pray so long as I live ; I fear lest I 
should break this promise to God. Now I de- 
sire the pardon of all my sins, and I beg faith in 
Christ, and I desire to live unto God, so long as 
I live ; I cannot myself get pardon, but I dayly 
commit sin, and break Gods Word, but I look to 
Christ for pardon." 



" CONFESSION OF EPHRAIM. 

All the daies I have lived, I have been in a 
poor foolish condition, I cannot tell all my sins, 
all my great sins, I do not see them. When I 
first heard of praying to God, I could not sleep 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 219 

quietly, I was so troubled, ever I thought I would 
forsake the place because of praying to God, my 
life hath been like as if I had been a mad man. 
Last yeer I thought I would leave all my sins, 
yet I see I do not leave off sinning to this day ; 
I now think I shall never be able to forsake my 
sins. I think sometimes the Word of God is 
false, yet I see .there is no giving over that I 
might follow sin, I must pray to God ; I do not 
truly in my heart repent, and I think that God 
wil not forgive me my sins : every day my heart 
sinneth, and how will Christ forgive such an 
one ? I pray but outwardly with my mouth, not 
with my heart ; I cannot of my self obtain par- 
don of my sins : I cannot tell all the sins that I 
have done if I should tell you an whol day to- 
gether : I do every morning desire that my sins 
may be pardoned by Jesus Christ ; this my heart 
saith, but yet I fear I cannot forsake my sins, 
because I cannot see all my sins : I hear. That 
if we repent and beleeve in Christ, all our sins 
shall be pardoned, therefore I desire to leave off 
my sins. 

This poor Publican was the last which made 
his Confession before I read them unto the 
Elders, and the last of them I shall now 
publish. I will shut up these Confessions 
with the Confession (if I may so call it) or 



220 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

rather with the Expression, and manifesta- 
tion of faith, by two little Infants, of two 
yeers old, and upward, under three yeers 
of age when they died and departed out of 
this world. 

The Story is this^ 

This Spring, in the beginning of the yeer, 1652, 
the Lord Avas pleased to aftiict sundry of our 
praying Indians with that grievous disease of 
the Bloody-Flux, whereof some with great tor- 
ments in their bowels died; among which were 
two little Children of the age above-said, and at 
that time both in one house, being together taken 
with that disease. The first of these Children 
in the extremities of its torments, lay crying to 
God in these words, God and Jesus Christ, God 
and Jesus Christ help me ; and when they gave 
it any thing to eat, it would greedily take it (as 
it is usual at the approach of death) but first it 
would cry to God, Oh God and Jesus Christ, 
bless it, and then it would take it : and in this 
manner it lay calling upon God and Jesus Christ 
untill it died : The mother of this Child also 
died of that disease, at that time. The Father 
of the Child told me this story, with great won- 
derment at the grace of God, in teaching his 
Child so to call upon God. The name of the 



LIFE OF JOHN t: L I T . 22 1 



Father is Nishohhou, whose Confession you 
have before. 

Three or four dales after, another Child in the 
same house, sick of the same disease, was (by a 
divine hand doubtless) sensible of the approach 
of death, (an unusual thing- at that age) and 
called to its Father, and said. Father, lam going 
to God, several times repeating it, / am going 
to God. The mother (as other mothers use to 
do) had made for the Child a little Basket, a lit- 
tle Spoon, and a little Tray: these things the 
Child was wont to be greatly delighted withal 
(as all Children will) therefore in the extremity 
of the torments, they set those things before it, a 
little to divert the mind, and cheer the spirit: 
but now, the child takes the Basket, and puts it 
away, and said, / loill leave my Basket .behind 
me, for I am going to God, I will leave mij 
Spoon and Tray behind me (putting them away) 
for I am going to God: and with these kind of 
expressions, the same night finished its course, 
and died. 

The Father of this child is named Robin 
Speen, whose Confessions you have before, and 
in one of them he maketh mention of this child 
that died in Faith. When he related this story 
to me, he said, He could not tell whether the 
19=^ 



222 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

sorrow for the death of his child, or the joy for 
its faith were greater, when it died. 

These Examples are a testimony. That they 
teach their children the knowledg and fear of 
God, whom they now call upon ; and also that 
the Spirit of God co-worketh with their instruc- 
tions, who teacheth by man, more than man is 
able to do." 

Mr. Eliot says, 'I have now finished all that I 
purpose to publish at this time ; the Lord give 
them Acceptance in the hearts of his Saints, to 
engage them the more to pray for them ; and 
Oh I that their judgings of themselves, and 
breathings after Christ, might move others (that 
have more means than they have, but as yet 
regard it not) to do the like, and much more 
abundantly.' 

A meeting of the Elders of the Churches was 
requested by Mr. Eliot, as before stated, to give 
advice in view of these Confessions, and upon 
further personal examination of some of the In- 
dians, as to the next step to be taken in organ- 
izing the Indian Church. But Mr. E. says, 

"There fell out a very great discouragement a 
little before the time, which might have been a 
scandall unto them, and I doubt not but Satan 
intended it so ; but the Lord improved it to stir 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 223 

up faith and Prayer, and so turned it another 
way : Thus it was. Three of the unsound sort 
of such as are among them that pray unto God, 
who are hemmed in by Relations, and other 
means, to doe that which their hearts love not, 
and whose Vices Satan improveth to scandalize 
and reproach the better sort withall; while 
many, and some good people are too ready to 
say they are all alike. I say three of them had 
gotten severall quarts of strong water, (which 
sundry out of a greedy desire of a little gaine, 
are too ready to sell unto them, to the offence 
and grief of the better sort of Indians^ and of the 
godly English too)^ and with these Liquors, did 
not onely make themselves drunk, but got a 
Child of eleven years of age, the Son of Tote- 
swampy whom his Father had sent for a little 
Corne and Fish to that place near Water towne 
where they were. Unto this Child they first 
gave too spoonfuls of Strong-water, which was 
more then his head could bear ; and another of 
them put a Bottle, or such like Vessel to his 
mouth, and caused him to drink till he was very 
drunk ; and then one of them domineered, and 
said, Noiv we will see whether your Father will 
punish us for drunkennesse (for he is a Ruler 
among them) seeing you are drunk with us for 



* See the Memorial of Mr. Eliot to the General Court, on this 
subject, Appendix L. 



224 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 



company ; and in this case lay the Child abroad 
all nijjht. They also fought, and had been sev- 
erall times Punished formerly for Drunkennesse. 
When Tutesxoamp heard of this, it was a great 
shame and breaking of heart unto him, and he 
knew not what to doe. The rest of the Rulers 
with him considered of the matter, they found a 
complication of many sins together. 

1 The sin of Drunkennesse, and that after 
many former Punishments for the same. 

2 A willful making of the Child drunk, and 
exposing him to danger also. 

3 A degree of reproaching the Rulers. 

4 Fighting. 

Word was brought to me of it, a little before 
I took Horse to goe to Natick to keep the Sab- 
bath with them, being about ten dayes before the 
appointed Meeting. The Tidings sunk my 
spirit extreamly, I did judge it to be the greatest 
frowne of God that ever I met withall in the 
work, I could read nothing in it but displeasure, 
I began to doubt about our intended work : I 
knew not what to doe, the blacknesse of the 
sins, and the Persons reflected on, made my 
very heart faile me : For one of the ofTendors 
(though least in the offence) was he that hath 
been my Interpreter, whom I have used in Trans- 
lating a good part of the Holy Scriptures ; and 
in that respect I saw much of Satans venome. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 225 

and in God I saw displeasure. For this and 
some other acts of Apostacy at this time, I had 
thoughts of casting him off from that work, yet 
now the Lord hath found a way to humble him. 
But his Apostacy at this time was a great Triall, 
and I did lay him by for that day of our Exam- 
ination, I used another in his room. Thus Satan 
aimed at me in this their miscarrying; and 
Totesicamp is a Principall man in the work, as 
you shall have occasion to see anon God-willing. 

By some occasion our Ruling Elder and I be- 
ing together, I opened the case unto him, and 
the Lord guided him to speak some gracious 
words of encouragement unto me, by which the 
Lord did relieve my spirit ; and so I committed 
the matter and issue unto the Lord, to doe what 
pleased him, and in so doing my soul was quiet 
in the Lord. I went on my journey being the 
6 day of the week ; when I came at Natick, the 
Rulers had then a Court about it. Soon after I 
came there, the Rulers came to me with a 
Question about this matter, they related the 
whole businesse unto me, with much trouble 
and grief. 

Then Toteswamp spake to this purpose, / am 
greathj grieved about these things, and now 
God tryeth me whether I love Christ or my Child 
best. They say, They will try me ; but I say. 



226 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

God will try me. Christ saith, He that loveth 
father, or mother^ or wife, or Child, letter than 
me, is not worthy of me. Christ saith, I must 
correct my Child, if I should refuse to doe that, 
I should not love Christ. God bid Abraham kid 
his Son, Abrahain loved God, and therefore he 
would have done it, had not God with-held him. 
God saith to me, onely punish your Child, and 
how can I love God, if I should refuse to doe 
tJiat? These things he spake in more words, 
and much afleclion, and not with dry eyes : Nor 
could I rcfraine from teares to hear him. When 
it was said, The Child was not so guilty of the 
sin, as those that made him drunk; he said, 
That he was guilty of sin, in that he feared not 
sin, and i)t that he did not believe his counsells 
that he had often given him, to take heed of cvill 
company ; but he had believed Satan and sinners 
more then him, therefore he needed to be pun- 
ished. After other such like discourse, the Ru- 
lers left me, and went unto their businesse, 
which they were about before I came, which 
they did bring unto this conclusion, and judge- 
ment. They judged the three men to sit in the 
stocks a good space of time, and thence to be 
brought to the whipping-Post, & have each of 
them twenty lashes. The boy to be put in the 
stocks a little while, and the next day his father 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 227 



was to whip him in the School, before the Chil- 
dren there ; all which Judgement was executed. 
When they came to be whipt, the Constable 
fetcht them one after another to the Tree (which 
they make use of instead of a Post) where they 
all received their Punishments: which done, 
the Rulers spake thus, one of them said. The 
Punishments for sin are the Commandements of 
God, and the loorke of God, and his end was, to 
doe them good, and bring them to repentance. 
And upon that ground he did in more words 
exhort them to repentance, and amendment of 
life. When he had done, another spake unto 
them to this purpose, You are taught in Cate- 
chisme, that the wages of sin are all miseries and 
calamities i7i this life, and also death and eternall 
damnation in hell. Now you feele some smart 
as the fruit of your sin, and this is to bring you 
to repentance, that so you may escape the rest. 
And in more words he exhorted them to repent- 
ance. When he had done, another spake to this 
purpose, Heareall yee people (turning himselfe to 
the People who stood round about, I think not 
lesse then two hundred, small and great) this is 
the Commandement of the Lord, that thus it 
should be done unto sinners; and therefore let 
all take warning by this, that you commit not 
such sins, least you incur these Punishments. 



228 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

And with more words he exhorted the People. 
Others of the Rulers spake also, but some things 
spoken I understood not, and some things slipt 
from me : But these which I have related re- 
mained with me. 

When I returned to Roxbury, I related these 
things to our Elder, to whom I had before re- 
lated the sin, and my grief: who was much 
affected to hear it, and magnified God. He said 
also, That their sin was but a Transient act, 
which had no Rule, and would vanish. But 
these Judgements were an ordinance of God, 
and would remaine, and doe more good every- 
way, then their sin could doe hurt, telling me 
what cause I had to be thankfuU for such an is- 
sue : Which I therefore relate, because the Lord 
did speak to my heart, in this exigent, by his 
words." 

This difficulty being thus settled, the time 
came for the meeting of the Elders. Mr. Eliot 
observes, 

" When the assembly was met for Examination 
of the Indians, and ordered, I declared the end 
and Reason of this Meeting, and therefore de- 
clared. That any one, in due order, might have 
liberty to propound any Questions for their sat- 
isfaction. Likewise, I requested the Assembly, 
That if any one doubted of the Interpretations 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 229 

that should be given of their answers, that they 
would Propound their doubt, and they should 
have the words scanned and tryed by tho Inter- 
preters, that so all things may be done most 
clearly. For my desire was to be true to Christ, 
to their soules, and to the Churches : And the 
trying out of any of their Answers by the In- 
terpreters, would tend to the satisfaction of such 
as doubt, as it fell out in one Answer which they 
gave ; the Question was, How they knew the 
Scriptures to be the word of God ? The finall 
Answer was, Because they did find that it did 
change their hearts, and wrought in them 
wisedome and humility. This Answer being 
Interpreted to the Assembly, my Brother Mahu 
doubted, especially of the word \Hohpo6onk'\ 
signifying Humility, it was scanned by the In- 
terpreters, and proved to be right, and he rested 
satisfied therein. I was purposed my selfe to 
have written the Elders Questions, and the In- 
dians Answers, but I was so imployed in pro- 
pounding to the Indians the Elders Questions, 
and in returning the Indians Answers, as that 
it was not possible for me to write unlesse I had 
caused the Assembly to stay upon it, which had 
not been fitting ; therefore seeing Mr. Walton 
writing, I did request him to write the Ques- 
tions and Answers, and help me with a Copy of 
VOL. III. 20 



230 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

them, which I thank him, he did, a Copy whereof 
I herewith send to be inserted in this place, on 
which, this only I will animadvert, That the El- 
ders in wisdome thought it not fit to ask them in 
Catechisticall method strictly, in which way 
Children might Answer. But that they might 
try whether they understood what they said, 
they traversed up and downe in Questions of 
Religion, as here you see. 

POSTCRIPT. 

Let the Reader take notice, That these ques- 
tions were not propounded all to one man, but 
to sundry, which is the reason that sometime 
the same Questions are propounded againe 
and againe. Also the number Examined 
were about eight, namely, so many as might 
be first called forth to enter into Church- 
Covenant, if the Lord give opportunity." 

We have a Catechism, entitled "The Exam- 
ination of the Indians at Roxbury, the 13th day 
of the 4th month, 1654. The following are 
some of the questions and answers. 

Q. Have not some Indians many Gods ? 

A. They have many Gods. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 231 

Q. How doe you know these Gods are no 
Gods. 

A. Before the English came we knew not 
but that they were Gods, but since they came 
we know they are no Gods : 

Q. How doe you know the word of God is 
Gods word ? 

A. I believe the word that you teach us, was 
spoken of God. 

Q. Why doe you believe it ? 

A. Therefore I believe it to be the word of 
God, because when we learn it, it teacheth our 
hearts to be wise and humble. 

Q. Whether are not your sins, and the 
temptations of Hobbomak more strong since, then 
before you prayed to God ? 

A. Before I prayed to God, I knew not what 
Satans temptations were. 

Q. Doe you know now ? 

A. Now I have heard what Satans tempta- 
tions are. 

Q. What is a temptation of the Devill in 
your heart, doe you understand what it is ? 

A. Within my heart there are Hypocrisies, 
which doe not appear without. 

Q. Whether doe not you find this a princi- 
pall temptation from the wickednesse of your 
heart, to drive you away from Christ, and not to 



232 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

believe the gracious Promises in Jesus Christ? 
Or whether when you find wickcdnesse in your 
heart, you are not tempted that you cannot believe ? 

A. My heart doth strongly desire to goe on 
in sin, but this is a strong temptation, but Faith 
is the work of Jesus Christ. 

Q. "What doe you believe about the immor- 
tality of the soule, and resurrection of the body ? 
doth the soule dye when the body dyeth ? 

A. I believe, when the body of a good man 
dyeth, the Angels carry his soule to heaven, 
when a wicked man dyeth, the Devills carry his 
soule to hell. 

Q. How long shall they be in that state ? 

A. Untill Christ cometh to Judgement. 

Q. When Christ cometh to judge the world, 
what then shall become of them ? 

A. The dead bodies of all men shall rise 
againe. 

Q. Whether shall they ever dye any more ? 

A. Good men shall never dye any more. 

Q. Whether doe you believe that these very 
bodies of ours shall rise againe ? 

A. This body which rots in the earth, this 
very body, God maketh it new. 

Q. Who is Jesus Christ ? 

A. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, yet borne 
man, and so both God and man. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 233 

Q. Why was Christ Jesus a man ? 

A. That he might dye for us. 

Q. Why is Christ Jesus God ? 

A. That his death might be of great value. 

Q. Why doe you say, Christ Jesus was a 
man that he might dye, doe onely men dye ? 

A. He dyed for our sins. 

Q. What reason or justice is there, that 
Christ should dye for our sins ? 

A. God made all the world, and man sinned, 
therefore it was necessary Christ should dye to 
carry men up to Heaven. God hath given unto 
us his Son Jesus Christ, because of our sins. 

The Question being put to another for further 
Answer, his Answer was. That God so 
loved the ivorld, that he gave his onely be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

Q. When you heare that Adam by his sin 
deserved eternall death, and when you hear of 
the grace of God sending Jesus to save you, 
which of these break your heart most ? 

A. Pardon of sin goeth deepest." 

With regard to the formation of the church, 
one writer says ; 

" This great and solemne work of calling up 
20^ 



234 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

these poor Indians unto that Gospel light and 
beauty of visible Church-estate, having now 
passed through a second Tryall : In the former 
whereof, they expressed what experience they 
had found of Gods grace in their hearts, turning 
them from dead works, to seek after the li\Tng 
God, and salvation in our Saviour Jesus Christ. 
In this second they have in some measure de- 
clared how far the Lord hath let in the light of 
the 'good knowledge of God into their soules, 
and what tast they have of the Principles of 
Religion, and doctrine of salvation. Now the 
Question remaineth, What shall we fur the?' doe? 
Aiid ivhen shall they enjoy the Ordinances of 
Jesus Christ in Church-estate ? 

" The work is very solemne, and the Ques- 
tion needeth a solemne Answer. It is a great 
matter to betrust those with the holy priviledges 
of Gods house, upon which the name of Christ 
is so much called, who have so little knowledge 
and experience in the wayes of Christ, so newly 
come out of that great depth of darknesse, and 
wild course of life ; in such danger of polluting 
and defiling the name of Christ among their 
barbarous Friends and Countrey-men ; and un- 
der so many doubts and jealousies of many peo- 
ple ; and having not yet stood in the wayes of 
Christ so long, as to give sufficient proof and 



LIFE OF JOHN K I- I O T . 235 

experience of their stedfastncsse in their hew 
begun profession. Being also the first Church 
gathered among thein, it is like to be a pattern 
and president of after proceedings, even unto 
following Generations. Hence it is very need- 
full that this proceeding of ours at first, be with 
all care and wearinesse guided, for the most ef- 
fectual! advancement of the holinesse and hon- 
our of Jesus Christ among them. 

"Upon such like grounds as these, though I 
and some others know more of the sincerity of 
some of them, than others doe, and are better 
satisfied with them : Yet because I may be in a 
temptation on that hand, I am well content to 
make slow hast in this matter, remembring fhat 
word of God, Lay hands suddenly on no man. 
Gods works among men doe usually goe on 
slowly, and he that goeth slowly, doth usually 
goe most surely, especially Avhen he goeth by 
counsell. Sat cito si satheJie^ the greater proof 
we have of them, the better approbation they 
may obtain at last. Besides, we having had 
one publick meeting about them already this 
summer, it will be difficult to compasse another, 
for we have many other great occasions, which 
may hinder the same, and it is an hard matter 
to get Interpreters together to attend such a 
work, they living so remote. The dayes also will 

* Fast enough, if well enough. 



236 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

soon grow short, and the nights cold, which will 
be an hindrance in the attendance unto the ac- 
complishment of that work, which will most fitly 
be done at Natick. 

" But above all other Reasons this is greatest, 
that they living in sundry Towns and places re- 
mote from each other, and labourers few to take 
care of them, it is necessary that some of them- 
selves should be trained up, and peculiarly 
instructed, unto whom the care of ruling and 
ordering of them in the affaires of Gods house 
may be committed, in the absence of such as 
look after their instruction. So that this is now 
the thing we desire to attend, for the comfort of 
our little Sister that hath no breasts, that such 
may be trained up, and prepared, unto whom 
the charge of the rest may be committed in the 
Lord. And upon this ground we make the 
slower hast to accomplish this work among 
them. Mean while I hope the Commissioners 
will afford some encouragement for the further- 
ance of the instruction of some of the most godly 
and able among them, who may be in a speciall 
manner helpfuU unto the rest, in due order and 
season. 

" And thus have I briefly set down our pres- 
ent state in respect of our Ecclesiasticall pro- 
ceedings. I beg the prayers of the good people 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 237 

of the Lord, to be particularly present at the 
Throne of Grace, in these matters, according as 
you have hereby a particular Information how 
our condition is. And for me also, who am the 
most unfit in humane reason for such a work as 
this, but my soule desireth to depend and live 
upon the Lord Jesus, and fetch all help, grace, 
mercy, assistance, and supply from him. And 
herein I doe improve his faithfuU Covenant and 
Promises, and in perticular, the Lord doth cause 
my soule to live upon that word of his, Psal. 
37 : 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, wherein I have food, rayment, 
and all necessaries for my selfe and children 
(whom I have dedicated unto the Lord, to serve 
him in this work of his, if he will please to 
accept of them) and this supply I live upon in 
these rich words of gracious Promise, verse 3. 
Trust in the Lord, and doe good, dv)ell in the 
hand, and verily thou shalt be fed. 

Herein also I find supply of grace to believe 
the conversion of these poor Indians, & that not 
only in this present season, in what I doe 
already see, but in the future also, further then 
by mine eye or reason I can see. Which sup- 
ply of grace, I live upon in those words of his 
gracious Promise, which I apply and improve in 
this particular respect, verse 4. Delight thy- 



238 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

selfe also in the Lord, a7id he shall give thee the 
desires of thy heart. 

" Herein also I find supply of grace to believe, 
that they shall be in Gods season, which is the 
fittest, brought into Church Estate ; faith fetch- 
ing this particular blessing out of the rich 
Fountaine of those gracious words of Promise, 
Commit thy way luito the Lord, trust also in 
him, and he shall bring it to passe. 

" Herein also my soule is strengthened and 
quieted, to stay upon the Lord, and to be sup- 
ported against all suspitious jealousies, hard 
speeches, and unkindnesses of men, touching 
the sincerity and reality of this work, and about 
my carriage of matters, and supply herein. 
Which grace my soule receiveth by a particular 
improvement of that rich treasury of the Prom- 
ise in these words, verse 6. And he shall bring 
forth thy righteoicsnesse as the light, and thy 
judgement as the noon day. And herein likewise 
I find supply of grace, to wait patiently for the 
Lords time, when year after year, and time after 
time, I meet with disappointments. Which 
grace I receive from the commanding force of 
that gracious Promise, verse 1 . Rest in the 
Lord, and wait patiently for him, fret not thy 
selfe, either for one cause, or another. Thus I 
live, and thus I labor, here I have supply, and 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 239 

here is my hope, I beg the help of prayers, that 
I may still so live and labour in the Lords work, 
and that I may so live and dye." 

In 1670, the number of men and women in 
full communion at Natick, was between forty 
and fifty, and more than three hundred and fifty 
had renounced their savage practices and open 
sins, and gave heed to the instructions of the 
Gospel. 

Their meetings were notified by the drum. 
In their assemblies they were attentive and rev- 
erent. A native teacher commenced worship 
with prayer, and the English Christains assisted 
in the business of instruction. There, as at 
other times, and in other places among civilized 
people God poured out his Spirit upon the young. 
Several cases of hopeful piety in young children 
are mentioned. The most interesting of them 
have already been given. 

Mr. Eliot having made a grammar of the In- 
dian tongue, and a catechism, was proceeding 
with his Indian Bible. In 1649, he said it was 
his earnest wish to translate some parts of the 
Scriptures for the Indians. He probably labored 
at this work, at intervals, for twelve years, and 
he was at least forty-five years of age when he 
began it. 



240 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

It should be remembered that this work, un- 
like the same employment of our foreign mis- 
sionaries at their first arrival at new stations, 
was wholly in addition to his labors as Pastor of 
another people, — the congregation at Roxbury. 
It was of no direct use to him in his ministerial 
work, any farther than investigation and study 
is always profitable to the mind. It was a labor 
superadded to the cares and toil of his pastoral 
and ministerial office. 

A man who has a taste for languages is gener- 
ally repaid for the labor of acquiring them, by 
the stores of learning which they contain. Cato 
learned Greek at the age of eighty, and the lit- 
erary world mention it to his praise. But here 
is a man learning a language which has no lit- 
erature. No tragic or heroic muse had left her 
inspired strains in it. No beautiful old ballads 
or legendary songs repaid his labor, — no Canter- 
bury Tales, or Children in the Wood, or Chevy 
Chase, or Fairy Queen, hymns of devotion, 
nor martial songs ; the language could only 
whoop and powaw ; the great word, gathering 
subjunctives and adjuncts into itself, like a 
crowded wigwam, was savagely ignorant of the 
graces, or the concise, vigorous expressions of 
some barbarous tongues, and Eliot's researches 
into it were like digging, as the Plymouth set- 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 241 

tiers did, into the mounds for corn, and finding 
nothing but skulls. But nothing could repress 
the ardor of his benevolent mind. He was de- 
termined that the Indians should have the word 
of God in their own tongue, and the work drew 
near to its accomplishment. 

But how could it ever be printed ? His slen- 
der salary could not pay for it ; the planters 
could not subscribe an adequate sum. In a let- 
ter to England in 1651, he says, with much 
sorrow, " I have no hope to see the Bible print- 
ed in my days." 

The Society for Propagating the Gospel came 
to his help."^ In September, 1661, the New Tes- 
tament in the Indian tongue was published at 
Cambridge. Three years after this, the Old 
Testament was added, and the whole Bible, 
with a Catechism and the Psalms of David in 
metre, was thus given to the Aborigines of this 
desert, in their own tongue, in forty years after 
the settlement of the country. 

This was the first Bible printed on this Con- 
tinent. It was printed at Cambridge, by Sam- 
uel Green and Marmaduke Johnson. A copy 
handsomely bound, was sent to King Charles II., 
and the Rev. Richard Baxter says of it, " Such 
a work and fruit of a plantation was never be- 

* See Appeodix E. 
VOL. III. 21 



242 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

fore presented unto a king." Two hundred 
copies, in plain and strong leather, were imme- 
diately put in circulation for the use of the 
Indians. An angel would almost have ex- 
changed his heavenly joy for the happiness of 
Eliot, when he visited Natick, and saw the Bi- 
ble in the hands of the natives. Like old 
Jacob, strengthening himself upon his dying 
bed, he might then have said, " I have waited 
for thy salvation, Lord;" or, like Simeon, 
*' Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in 
peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 

Douglass, in his History of America,"^ says, 
" j\Ir. Eliot with immense labor translated and 
printed our Bible into Indian. It was done with 
a good pious design, but it must be reckoned 
among the otiosorum hominum 7iegotia, (works 
of men of leisure). It was done in the Natick 
(Nipmuck) language. Of the Naticks, at pres- 
ent, there are not twenty families subsisting, 
and scarce any of these can read. Cui bono .?" 
(To what profit ?) 

Those who know how far Mr. Eliot was 
from being a man of leisure, will smile at the 
suggestion that the translation of the Bible into 
the Indian tongue was the work of an idle ama- 
teur. The disappearance of the race for whom 
this translation was designed, so unexpected, 

*L 172, Note. 1745. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 243 

and indeed so contrary to the fond hopes of our 
forefathers, is very far from showing the futility 
of Mr. Eliot's pious labor. Many of the Indians 
were made wise unto eternal life by the trans- 
lated Bible. The good which it accomplished 
was more than an equivalent for the labor which 
it cost. 

Cotton Mather says, " Behold, ye Americans, 
the greatest honour that ever you were partakers 
of. This Bible was printed here at our Cam- 
bridge, and it is the only Bible that ever was 
printed in all America, from the very foundation 
of the world. The whole translation he writ 
with but one pen ; which pen, had it not been 
lost, would have certainly deserved a richer 
case than was bestowed upon that pen with 
which Holland writ his translation of Plu- 
tarch. ^ 



*IVIag. II, 511. Phihrnon Holland. See Rees' Encyc, Aiken's 
Biog. Mem. of Medicine. He was the translator general of hia age, 
a man of incredible industry. In Fuller's Worthies of England we 
learn that Holland, having written several translations with one pen, 
made the following stanza : 

" With one sole pen I writ this book, 
Made of a gray goose quill ; 
A pen it was when I it took. 
And a pen I leave it still." 

A familiar story is told of Gibbon, in writing the " Pecline and 
Fall," and that he presented the pen to the Duchess of Devonshire, 
who honored it with a silver case. These stories are probably fabu- 



244 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

The New Testament was published first, and 
then the whole Bible, Primers, Grammars, 
Psalters, Catechisms, The Practice of Piety, 
Baxter's Call, Shepard's sincere Convert and 
Sound Believer, soon appeared in the Indian 
tongue, from the pen of Mr. Eliot. 

By this time there were fourteen places of 
praying Indians under the care of Mr. Eliot, 
and about eleven hundred souls who were ap- 
parently converted. Natick, Stoughton, Graf- 
ton, Tewksbury, Hopkinton, Oxford, Dudley, 
Woodstock (three villages), Uxbridge and Marl- 
boro', all had communities of praying Indians. 

Mr. Bancroft, in his History of the United 
States,"^ says, " No pains were spared to teach 
them to read and write, and in a short time a 
larger proportion of the Massachusetts Indians 
could do so, than recently of the inhabitants of 
Russia." The Indians of Cape Cod, Martha's 
Vineyard, and Nantucket, amounting to about 
twenty -nine hundred, also were, by the labors 
of the Mayhews and others, partly evangelized. 
Mr. Eliot says, in 1673, that there were six 
churches gathered among the Indians, one at 



lou3. The contrivances which these men must have used to make one 
pen, or even one quill, do so much work, would deserve the appella- 
tion above quoted from Douglass, " otiosorum hominum negotia," — 
or, the notions of men who had plenty of leisure. 
* II. 94. 



LITE OF JOHN ELIOT. 245 

Natick, one at Grafton, one at Marshpee, two at 
Martha's Vineyard, and one at Nantucket. All 
these had religious teachers devoted exclusively 
to them, except the church at Natick, of which 
Mr. Eliot says, " In modesty they stand off, be- 
cause they say that so long as I live, there is no 
need." They could not be prevailed upon to 
have another teacher even with the advantages 
of his entire devotion to them, while Mr. Eliot 
was alive. 

Cotton Mather says,^ " The number of 
preachers to the Indians increases apace. At 
Martha's Vineyard, the old Mr. Mayhew and 
several of his sons, or grand-sons, have done 
very worthily for the souls of the Indians ; there 
were fifteen years ago by computation about fif- 
teen hundred souls of their ministry, upon that 
one island. In Connecticut, the holy and acute 
Mr. Fitch has made noble essays towards the 
conversion of the Indians ; but I think the sin- 
ner he has to deal withal, being an obstinate in- 
fidel, gives unhappy rumor as to the successes of 
his ministry. And godly Mr. Pierson has, if I 
mistake not, deserved well in that colony upon 
the same account. In Massachusetts we see at 
this day the pious Mr. Gookin, the gracious Mr. 



* Magnalia I, 516.— See Appendix G. 

2l# 



246 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

Peter Thacher, the well accomplished and in- 
dustrious Mr. Grindal Rawson, all of them hard 
at work, to turn these poor creatures from dark- 
ness to light, and from Satan unto God. In 
Plymouth we have the most active Mr. Samuel 
Treat laying out himself to save this genera- 
tion, and there is one Mr. Tupper, who uses 
his laudable endeavours for the instruction of. 
them. 

" "IJ'is my relation to him '^ that causes me to 
defer unto the last place the mention of Mr. 
John Cotton, who hath addressed the Indians in 
their own language with some dexterity. He 
hired an Indian after the rate of twelve pence 
per day, for fifty days, to teach him the Indian 
tongue ; but his knavish tutor having received 
his whole pay too soon, ran away before twenty 
days were out ; however, in this time he had 
profited so far that he could quickly preach unto 
the natives." 

Two Indians from Martha's Vineyard were 
entered at Harvard College. Their names were 
Joel and Caleb. Joel was lost on his voyage 
from Boston to Nantucket just before taking his 
degree. Caleb was graduated, but soon died of 



* Cotton Mather'3 mother was the daughter of Mr. Cotton. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 247 

consumption at Charlestown. His name now 
stands on the Collecfe Cataloi^ue in this form : 
" 1665, Caleb Cheesehahteaumuck, Indus." Ho 
composed a Latin and Greek Eleg^y on the 
death of an eminent minister, and subscribed 
them, " Cheesehahteaumuck, Senior Sophista." 



248 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 



CHAPTER VII. 

Disturbance of Missionary clTorts. Philip's War. Removal of liie 
Inilians to Deer Isle. Return. Conclusion of the History of Mis- 
sionary cflTorts among the Indians of this neighborhood. Reflec- 
tions. 

Civilization and the influence of the Gospel, 
however, had their limits. The Narraganset 
Indians, situated between the Connecticut and 
Plymouth Colonies, refused the Gospel, and the 
benevolent intentions of the English. King 
Philip, the famous warrior of Mount Hope, (now 
Bristol) whose name was terrible to our fore- 
fathers, scorned the doctrines of the cross. Mr. 
Eliot once had an interview with him, explained 
the way of salvation, and exhorted him to re- 
pent. The Indian chieftain rose, took hold of 
Mr. Eliot's button, and told him, that he cared 
no more for his Gospel than he did for that but- 
ton. 

The Indians under Philip were growing jeal- 
ous of English encroachments upon their hunting 
fields. Petty depredations were made by the 
Indians upon the English settlements, then fol- 



LIFE OF JOHN E L I O T . 249 

lowed a summons to court, which, in process of 
time, became exceedingly annoying to proud, 
untamed savages. They had bartered their 
lands for English implements and toys; the 
tools and the toys were gone, and the savage 
could not be satisfied to abide by a paper, call it 
treaty, bond, or contract, on which he had 
scratched his mark. He sighed for his old do- 
mains ; the waves of civilization were coming 
round him like a flood ; his people were artfully 
crowded by the English into narrow inlets be- 
tween the settlements, that they might be 
watched on all sides. 

King Philip was summoned to Court in 1674, 
for some offence committed by his tribe. The 
informer was murdered by the angry savages. 
The murderers were hanged by the English. 
The massacre of eight or nine of the English at 
Swansey was the consequence. Philip wept 
when he heard that the blood of a white man 
had been shed. The Colonists began to arm, 
and a universal panic prevailed. The supersti- 
tion of those days added much to the general 
terror. Signs in the heavens were reported to 
have been seen, a scalp on the disc of the moon 
in an eclipse ; an Indian bow was imprinted on 
the sky. Troops of horses were heard rushing 
throuirh the air. The horrors of an Indian war 



250 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

made their faces pale and their hearts faiijt. 
The scenes at Bloody Brook, the burning of 
Lancaster, Medfield, Brookfield, Weymouth, 
Groton, Marlborough, the ambushments rising 
on the congregation as they returned from pub- 
lic worship, the massacre of wives and children 
at home, and the scalping of husbands and 
brothers in the field, roused the colonies of 
Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut to an 
exterminating war. 

It is easy to see that the communities of pray- 
ing Indians could not escape the influence of the 
general excitement against the Indians. Some 
of them were accused, justly or unjustly, of fa- 
voring the designs of the enemy. The Colo- 
nists were all the time afraid that the instinctive 
love of war and carnage in the Indian bosom 
would break through the restraints of religion, 
and that all which had been done for the Indians 
would be only a qualification of them as more 
successful traitors and expert butchers. 

On the other hand, King Philip was jealous 
of the praying Indians. He used every means 
of persuasion and fear to enlist them on his side. 
Their situation was trying in the extreme. In 
the excited state of mind which an Indian war 
created among the English, a war on the part of 
the savages of stratagem, and treachery, it was 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 251 

natural that the Christian Indians should he 
trusted and feared. Some of them enlisted with 
the English and did good service, and some de- 
serted to Philip. 

In 1675, a number of the Christian Indians 
were brought to Boston on a charge of being 
concerned in a murder at Lancaster. Mr. Eli- 
ot and his friends interposed to save them, and 
succeeded in showing that the accusation was 
false and malicious. In so doing, they incurred 
the popular resentment, and were suspected and 
accused of bad motives and treasonable conduct. 

The feelings of the people were now so un- 
reasonable that the worst consequences to the 
praying Indians were apprehended. In this state 
of things the General Court, as a means of pro- 
tection to themselves and to the Indians, passed 
an order that the Natick Indians should be re- 
moved to Deer Island, in Boston harbor, between 
four and five miles from shore. They came to 
the place called the Pines, near Cambridge, on 
Charles River, and were thence conveyed by 
water to Deer Island. Mr. Eliot met them at 
the Pines, and endeavored to soothe and cheer 
them. He was then seventy years old. One 
might question whether he or the Indians suf- 
fered most in their removal. 

A party of Indians had fired a barn at Chelms- 



252 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

ford. The English imputed it to the praying 
Indians at Tewksbury. A party of the English 
went to their wigwams, called them out and shot 
one lad, and wounded several women and chil- 
dren. The murderers were tried, but the jury 
were overawed by the public sentiment and 
cleared them. The Tewksbury Indians fled 
into the wilderness ; messengers were sent to 
them inviting them to return, but they gave this 
answer : We are not sorry for what we leave 
behind, but we are sorry that the English have 
driven us from praying to God, and from our 
leader. We did begin to understand a little of 
praying to God. When the whiter season came, 
their sufferings forced them back to their wig- 
wams, and the English endeavored in various 
ways to atone for the injuries they had suf- 
fered. 

The Stoughton Indians, for some suspicion, 
were also removed to Deer Island, and the whole 
number there amounted to five hundred. Mr. 
Eliot and his friends visited them, and found 
them patient and meek, exhibiting the true in- 
fluence of the Gospel in a satisfactory degree. 
But they were exposed to want and suffering of 
various kinds. The ill-treatment of other com- 
munities of Indians followed in rapid succession, 
and it was in vain that they sought in moments 



LIFE. OF JOHN ELIOT. 253 



of contention, to repair the injuries which they 
had inflicted. One party of Indians, for exam- 
ple, had been taken by a Narraganset Sachem, 
and had escaped, and were wandering in the 
woods, when an English scouting party met 
them, taking from them, among other things, a 
pewter cup which Mr. Eliot had given them for 
their communion service, and which they had 
kept and carried with them with the reverence 
of a Jew for his sacred vessels of gold and 
silver. This party were also carried to Deer 
Island. 

Philip, the terror of the English Colonies on 
this continent, was finally destroyed. The war 
subsiding, the Deer Island Indians, with the 
permission of the General Court, and by the 
funds of the society in England for propagating 
the Gospel, were removed to Cambridge, and 
were permitted to choose their places of settle- 
ment. Some of them went to the various falls 
of Charles River, some to Brush Hill in Milton, 
some settled at Nonantum, and many of them 
went to Natick. 

But the efforts to Christianize the Indians 
were never resumed with the interest and zeal 
which were formerly felt. On the part of the 
English, there was conscience of wrong, and on 

VOL. III. 22 



254 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

the part of the Indians a remembrance of injus- 
tice, and thus a breach was made between them 
which was never healed. Some of the Indians 
had been made slaves. King Philip's wife and 
son had been sold in the West Indies."^ Mr. 
Eliot followed with his prayers and efforts those 
of his Christian Indians who had been sold into 
bondage. He wrote to the celebrated and hon- 
orable Robert Boyle to use his efforts in redeem- 
ing some who had been left at Tangier. 

By various means the praying towns had been 
reduced in 16S4, to four. The tribes have dwin- 
dled and finally disappeared, till a few years 
since one poor hut in Natick, inhabited by a 
family of Indian and Negro blood, and the grave- 
stone of Daniel Takawambait in the stone wall, 
were the most prominent of the memorials 
which they have left behind them. Fragments 
of their language are imperishably associated 
with many places and scenes throughout the 
land. The rural retreat, the new town, the 
gallant ship, are emulous of their names ; while 
the tavern sign, the bank note, the omnibus, 
and the tobacconist, grace themselves with their 
faces and implements. The New England poet, 



♦ See Appendix, M. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 255 

historian, and orator, draw llirillinf^ incidents 
from Mount Hope and Bloody Brook, and the 
Christian and the phihinthro])ist will enshrine 
the names of Nonantum and Natick. West- 
ward and still westward, the New England 
tribes have receded. Civilization has had more 
repulsion and injury for the savage than Christ- 
ianity has been able to overcome. There is a 
law of progress in the affairs of nations ex- 
pressed in the prophetic language of the patriarch 
Noah ; " God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall 
dwell in the tents of Shem." The savage 
retreats before the civilized man, and while we 
mourn over the ruin of individual tribes, we 
cannot but stand in awe x)f that resistless meas- 
ure of God's providence by which he is forcing 
the Caucasian race to fill the earth, and suffer- 
ing uncivilized nations to melt away like the 
snow in spring. 

But that same vigorous faith which broi»ght 
the Pilgrims here as missionaries to the Indians, 
has followed the red man in his wanderings 
over this vast continent. The names of David 
Brainard, Samuel Kirkland, and Gideon Black- 
burn, are identified with the history of Indian 
missions. The American Board has pursued 
the work of evangelizing them with much sue- 



256 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

cess. The history of the Cherokees, the moun- 
taineers of America, is of itself a tale of romantic 
and thrilling interest. The sketches of the 
present North American Indians by Mr. Catlin, 
in his valuable work, show that a large field for 
missionary effort on this continent is yet spread 
before the American churches. 

When the workmen were digging for the 
foundation of some new houses at the corner of 
Tremont and Boylston streets, in Boston, sever- 
al years ago, they found the skeleton of an 
Indian. He had been buried on his side, re- 
clining on his arm, and was found in that 
posture. Christian faith and hope, mingled 
with a little fancy, would fain lead us to hail 
this incident as a sign that the Indian race are 
not yet recumbent in hopeless degradation ; that 
though seemingly buried in the great wilderness, 
they are buried in the posture of rising. Many 
interesting recollections, and our natural feel- 
ings towards an oppressed people, make us wish 
that this was more than fancy, and, as the Indian 
on the seal of the Massachusetts colony had a 
passage of Scripture proceeding from his mouth. 
Come over and help us, would we gladly put 
another passage into the mouth of that resurrec- 
tion Indian above mentioned, making him say, 



LIFE OK JOHN ELIOT. 257 

with prophetic ecstasy, as he looks towards 
Nonanlum and surveys the scenes of his ancient, 
and apparently lost race, " Thy dead men shall 
live, together with my dead body shall they 
arise ; awake and singf, ye that dwell in dust, 
tor thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the 
earth shall cast out her dead." 



22=^ 



258 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Mr. Eliot's avowal of republicanism, and his retraction of it. His 
connection with the controversy^bout Mrs. Hutchinson. Richard 
Baxter's Testimony about Mr. Eliot. Roman Catholics instructing 
the Indians. Mrs. Eliot. Close of Mr. Eliot's life. Conclusion. 

Two events in the life of Mr. Eliot must neces- 
sarily be noticed in giving a complete account of 
him. One is the publication and subsequent 
retraction of a book called the Christian Com- 
monwealth, and the other is his connection with 
the controversy raised by that notorious woman, 
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. 

Mr. Eliot wrote a book about the year 1650, 
called the Christian Commonwealth. It was 
carried to England in manuscript and printed. 
In 1660, the Governor and Council of Massa- 
chusetts condemned this book as being " full of 
seditious principles and notions in relation to all 
established governments in the Christian world, 
especially against the government established in 
their native country." 

Mr. Eliot wrote an acknowledgment of error 
as the author of the book, and presented his re- 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 259 

cantation to the General Court. He speaks in 
it of Cromwell and his friends as " the late in- 
novators " in the government of Great Britain, 
and of the monarchy as restored under Charles 
II., " as not only a lawful but eminent form of 
government." The book was suppressed, and 
Mr. Eliot's recantation was published through 
the colony. 

This incident has been considered as reflect- 
ing on Mr. Eliot's character for discretion, or 
for decision. The book does not survive in this 
country to speak for itself. The facts in the 
case seem to be that during the success of Crom- 
well, Mr. Eliot composed his book in accordance 
with what seemed to be the tendency in Eng- 
land towards a settled republican form of gov- 
ernment. But upon the restoration of Charles 
II., the provincial government of Massachusetts 
felt in duty bound to show their allegiance to 
the crown by protesting against the sentiments 
of a book which favored republicanism. How 
often it is the case that success is regarded as 
settling the question of right. Had Cromwell's 
plan succeeded, the Massachusetts government 
would not have felt obliged to condemn Mr. 
Eliot's book. We may perhaps reflect upon 
him for not maintaining and defending the 
principles of his book ; but to have done so 



260 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

would have been treason, seeing that monarchy 
had again become the established form of gov- 
ernment in the mother country. Mr. Eliot, 
perhaps, felt that it was right for him to find 
reasons for that permanent change in the gov- 
ernment of Great Britain which in the provi- 
dence of God seemed to be at hand. When the 
event proved otherwise than he expected, loyalty 
being then so much a part of religion, and " the 
powers " in the government of the mother 
country being, according to the received opinions 
of Christians, and like all other powers " that 
be," " ordained of God," it was a question with 
Mr. Eliot between decision and boldness, 
amounting to a treasonable spirit, and submis- 
sion to constituted authority. The ill suc- 
cess of Cromwell no doubt made Eliot think 
that he had misinterpreted the purposes of 
God. Men are apt to feel and reason in this 
manner. If a colony, or province, or a number 
of men make insurrection, and succeed in over- 
throwing the government, men call it a revolu- 
tion, and the independence of the new state or 
nation is acknowledged. If they do not succeed, 
the attempt is called a plot, conspiracy, insur- 
rection, and the actors who in the event of suc- 
cess would have been " the fathers of their 
country," " the founders of a nation," are gib- 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 261 

beted by tbeir generation, and regarded as 
traitors by the next, and by the world. While 
a revolution is pending, a man may say many 
things as an observer and thcorizer, which, 
when events contradict them, he will do his best 
to retract, or cover up. It cannot be wondered 
at, that, amid the enthusiasm which attended 
the Restoration, and the implicit submission of 
the Colonial government to the restored king, 
and influenced by the loyal spirit of his times, 
Mr. Eliot should have deemed it a Christian 
duty to confess and retract that which the prov- 
idence of God seemed to indicate was an error. 
He was not prepared to lift up a standard against 
the government of Great Britain ; the appeal 
which Cromwell and his friends had made to 
the God of nations and of battles, had not been 
answered in his favor, and Mr. Eliot was meek 
enough to yield submission to that which, in the 
circumstances, seemed to be a Christian obliga- 
tion. What should he have done ? Had he 
still believed that Cromwell was the anointed of 
the Lord, and that Charles was the usurper, he 
should have suffered any punishment rather 
than falsify his sentiments. It may be charita- 
bly supposed, however, that the events of the 
Restoration changed his opinion, and made him 
satisfied to be still a royalist. We have no evi- 



262 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

dence in any part of his life, that Mr. Eliot was 
a time-server, or coward ; on the contrary, he 
was remarkable for decision of character and in- 
dependence. 

In confirmation of what has now been said 
respecting Mr. Eliot's decision and firmness, we 
may allude to the part he took in opposing the 
sentiments and influence of that notorious dis- 
turber of the churches in his day, Mrs. Anne 
Hutchinson. She was of the sect of Antinomi- 
ans, who abused the doctrines of free grace, 
maintaining that the law is of no use or obliga- 
tion under the dispensation of the Gospel, while 
the doctrines they taught superseded the neces- 
sity of good works. Mrs. Hutchinson pretended 
to immediate impressions from heaven as the 
rule of conduct, saying that she knew God 
*' spake to her, just as Abraham knew that it 
was the command of Heaven to sacrifice Isaac." 
The Governor, Vane, who was an enthusiast, 
countenanced this woman, and Eev. Mr. Cotton, 
who took Mr. Eliot's place in the church at 
Boston, when Mr. Eliot removed to Roxbury, 
was also infected by her influence so far as to 
oppose his colleague, the Rev. Mr. Wilson, and 
the other ministers, who were generally opposed 
to her. Had Mr. Eliot remained the teacher of 
the church in Boston, it would have prevented 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 263 

that church from being divided as it was with 
regard to Mrs. Hutchinson, through the influ- 
ence of his successor, Mr. Cotton. Mr. Eliot, 
with several other ministers, visited her, con- 
versed with her upon religious subjects to 
ascertain her sentiments and spirit, and remon- 
strated with her for her bold denunciation of all 
the Plantation except Messrs. Cotton and Wheel- 
right. Mr. Eliot appeared as a witness against 
her on her trial before the magistrates, and with 
Hugh Peters and Mr. Weld, testified that she 
said to them that " Mr. Cotton preached a cove- 
nant of grace, and the other ministers a covenant 
of works." Mr. Eliot added, " I do remember 
this also, that she said we were not able and 
faithful ministers of the new covenant, because 
we were not like the apostles before the ascen- 
sion." Mr. Eliot took occasion on this trial to 
bear testimony against yielding to impressions 
as a rule of faith and duty. A passage from 
Mr. Hooker's sermons was quoted in justifica- 
tion of Mrs. Hutchinson's statements. But Mr. 
Eliot who had been brought up at the feet of 
Mr. Hooker, and knew his opinions well, insist- 
ed that the construction given to the passage 
was contrary to Mr. Hooker's mind and judg- 
ment. His old friend. Gov. Winthrop, gently 
dissented from Mr. Eliot's strong testimony 



264 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

against impressions. Mr. Eliot said, " I say- 
there is an expectation of things promised ; but 
to have a particular revelation of things, as they 
shall fall out, there is no such thing in the 
Scripture." Gov. Winthrop replied, " We must 
not limit the word of God."^ Mrs. Hutchinson 
was condemned and banished. Her end soft- 
ened the feelings of those who condemned her, 
and made them reflect upon the inexpediency of 
proceeding so strenuously as they did against 
her. Such feelings always arise in the minds 
of good men who have withstood prevailing 
errors, not to make them regret the testimony 
they bore for the truth, but to mourn over hasty 
and excessive zeal, when patience, and perhaps 
a measure of neglect, might sooner have ended 
a controversy, or have prevented it altogether. 
But it is easier for those who are removed, by 
time or place, from the excitements of a contro- 
versy, to moralize upon the best way of conduct- 
ing it, than it would have been for them to exer- 
cise the judicious temper which they recommend 
and praise, had they themselves partaken in the 
strife. Mr. Eliot showed himself in this contro- 
versy to be no fanatical enthusiast, and gave 



* Mass. Hist. Coll. 1802. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 265 

evidence that he was a man of decision and 
courage. 

The following; characteristic letter was written 
by the famous Rev. Richard Baxter to Dr. In- 
crease Mather then in London. It was occa- 
sioned by the receipt of Cotton Mather's Life of 
Eliot. 

" Dear Brother : 

I thought I had been near dying at 12 
o'clock, in bed; but your book revived me. I 
lay reading it until between one and two. I 
knew much of Mr. Eliot's opinions, by many 
letters which I had from him. There was no 
man on earth whom I honoured above him. It 
is his evangelical work that is the apostolical 
succession that I plead for. I am now dying, I 
hope, as he did. It pleased me to read from 
him my case, [my understanding failetk, mij 
memory faileth, my tongue failetk,] (and my 
hand and pen,) l2ct my charity faileth not. 
That word much comforted me. I am as zeal- 
ous a lover of the New England Churches as 
any man, according to Mr. Noyes', Mr. Norton's, 
Mr. Mitchel's, and the Synod's model. 

" I loved your father upon the letters I re- 
ceived from him. I love you better for your 
learning, labors, and peaceable moderaliou. I 

VOL. ITT. 2a 



266 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. » 

love your son better than either of you, for the 
excellent temper that appeareth in his writings.^ 
O tliat godliness and wisdom (may) thus in- 
crease in all families ! He hath honoured him- 
self half as much as Mr. Eliot. I say but half 
as much ; for deeds excel words. God preserve 
you and New England ! Pray for 
Your fainting, 

languishing Friend, 

Ri. Baxter." 
August 3, 
1691. 

In contrast with the instructions which Mr. 
Eliot and other Protestant missionaries to the 
Indians gave the children of the wilderness, 
Cotton Mather alludes to the instructions given 
to the Indians in some parts of the country by 
the Popish missionaries. He says, 

" By an odd accident there are lately fallen 
into my hands the manuscripts of a Jesuit, 
whom the French employed as a missionary 
among the western Indians, in which papers 
there are both a catechism, containing the prin- 
ciples which those heathens are to be instructed 



* This testimony from Richard Baxter, in favor of the Mathers, 
is valuaibl* to those who bare seen them decried by soma modern 
writaro. 



» LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 267 

in, and cases of conscience referring to their 
conversations. The catechism, which is in the 
Iroquois language — with a translation annexed, 
has one chapter about heaven, and another 
about hell, wherein are such thick skulled pas- 
sages as these." 

Q. How is the soil made in heaven ? 

A. 'Tis a very fair soil, they want neither 
for meats nor clothes ; 'tis but wishing, and we 
have them. 

Q. Are they employed in heaven ? 

A. No, they do nothing; the fields yield corn, 
beans, pumpkins, and the like without any tillage. 

Q. What sort of trees are there ? 

A. Always green, full, flourishing, 

Q. Have they in heaven the same sun, the 
same wind, the same thunder that we have here ? 

A. No, the sun ever shines ; it is always 
fair weather. 

Q. But how are their fruits ? 

A. In this one quality they exceed ours, 
that they are never wasted ; you have no sooner 
plucked one, but you see another presently 
hanging in its room. 

Concerning hell, it thus discourses. 

Q. What sort of a soil is that of hell ? 

A. A very wretched soil ; 'tis a fiery pit in 
the centre of the earth. 



268 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. * 

Q. Have they any light in hell ? 

A. No. 'Tis always dark ; there is al- 
ways smoke there ; their eyes are always in 
pain with it ; they can see nothing but the 
devils. 

Q. What shaped things are the devils ? 

A. Very ill shaped things ; they go about 
with vizards on, and they terrify men. 

Q. What do they eat in hell ? 

A. They are always hungry, but the damned 
feed on hot ashes and serpents there. 

Q. What water do they drink ? 

A. Horrid water, nothing but melted lead. 

Q. Don't they die in hell ? 

A. No ; yet they eat one another every day ; 
but anon, God restores and renews the man that 
was eaten, as a cropt plant in a little time re- 
pullulates. 

One case of conscience is thus resolved by the 
Jesuit : 

Q. Whether an Indian stealing a hatchet 
from a Dutchman be bound to make restitution ? 

A. If the Dutchman be one that has used any 
trade with other Indians, the thief is not bound 
unto any restitution ; for it is certain he gains 
more by such a trade than the value of many 
hatchets in a year. 

In the History of the Early Jesuit Missions to 



^ LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 269 

the Indians of this country,'^ as well as in all 
other Jesuit missions, there is a degree of zeal 
and devotedness which is truly wonderful. 
This is not the place to discuss the motives of 
these men, nor the principle in human nature 
which leads to their self-sacrifice in the mission- 
ary work. The fruits of their work, however, 
show that they do not promulgate the Gospel of 
Christ in its simplicity, did we not know this by 
more "direct evidence. 

The wife of Mr. Eliot died three years before 
him, at the age of 84. She had come to him 
across the ocean, a betrothed bride, when he had 
found a home for her in this new world. During 
her residence here, " she had attained unto a 
considerable skill in physick and chirurgery 
which enabled her to dispense many safe, good, 
and useful medicines unto the poor that had oc- 
casion for them ; and some hundreds of sick 
and weak and maimed people owed praises to 
God for the benefit which therein they freely 
received of her." t 

She managed all the private affairs of her hus- 
band for him that he might devote his whole 
time and strength to his arduous public labors. 
She brought up his six children of whom he 



* See Early Jesuit Missions, «5c;c., by Wni. Ingraham Kip. 
fC. Mather. 

23* 



270 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

beautifully said, " they are all in Christ, or with 
Christ," and then she smoothed his passage to 
the tomb by going before him, and making him 
more willing to depart. " That one wife," says 
Mather, " which was given to him truly from 
the Lord, he loved, prized, cherished, with a 
kindness that notably represented the compas- 
sion which he thereby taught his church to ex- 
pect from the Lord Jesus Christ ; and after he 
had lived with her for more than half an hun- 
dred years he followed her to the grave with 
lamentations beyond those which the Jews, from 
the figure of a letter in the text,"^ affirm, that 
Abraham deplored his Sarah with ; her depar- 
ture made a deeper impression on him than 
what any common affliction could. His whole 
conversation with her had that sweetness and 
that gravity and modesty beautifying of it, that 
every one called them Zachery and Elizabeth." t 
The old gray haired apostle stood over her 
coffin, and said to the concourse of people who 
had come to the funeral, " Here lies my dear, 
faithful, pious, prudent, prayerful wife. I 

* Mather's allusion is probably this : In Gen. 23 : 2, where it is 
said that Abraham came to weep for Sarah, a letter, smaller than the 
rest, in the Hebrew word to xceep for her is believed by the Jewish 
critics to intimate that his grief was somewhat composed; ( — " luc- 
tum AbrahcE fuisse moderatum," — Poole's Synopsis.) — Ed. 

t Magnalia I. 495. 



LIFE OF JOHN EL. lOT. 271 

shall go to her, but she shall not return to 
me." 

Lord Bacon^ speaking of "marriage and single 
life," tells us what wives are to young men, and 
that " for middle age" they are " companions," 
and " old men's nurses." Men generally do 
not wait till old age before they experience the 
exquisite tenderness and assiduity of woman io 
their sickness. We all subscribe to the last coup- 
let of the following quotation, but not to the first; 

" O woman ! in thine hours of ease 
Deceitful,, coy. and hard to please. 

****** 
When pain and sickness wring the brow, 
A ministering angel thou." 

There is a beautiful passage in one of Steeled 
papers in the Spectator. It purports to be a 
letter to his wife. He says. 

" It is impossible for me to look back on many 
evils and pains which I have suffered since we 
came together, without a pleasure which is not 
to be expressed from the proofs I have had, 
in those circumstances, of your unmeasured 
goodness. How often has your tenderness re- 
moved pain from my sick head ! how often an- 
guish from my afflicted heart ! With how skill- 
ful patience have I known you comply with the 

* Essays, VIII. 



272 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

vain projects which pain has suggested, to have 
an aching limb removed, by journeying from 
one side of a room to another ! how often, the 
next instant, traveled the same ground again, 
without telling your patient it loas to no pur- 
pose to change his situation. If there are such 
beings as guardian angels, thus are they em- 
ployed. I will no more believe one of them 
more good in its inclinations, than I can con- 
ceive it more charming in its form than my wife." 
As Mr. Eliot became disabled by age for the 
ministerial work, he seemed to have the earnest 
solicitude about a successor which Moses had 
when, towards the close of his life, he "cried to 
the Lord " that he would " set a man over the 
congregation." Mr. Eliot more than once as- 
sembled the people of the town to fast and pray 
Vv^ith reference to a successor. The Rev. Nehe- 
miah Walter was by the unanimous vote of the 
people associated with him in the pastoral 
office, after which it was with difficulty that he 
could be persuaded to conduct any public relig- 
ious service, saying, " It would be a wrong to 
the souls of the people for him to do any thing 
among them when they were supplied so much 
to their advantage." The last time that he 
preached is said to have been on the occasion 
of a public fast, when he expounded the Ixxxiii. 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 273 

4 

Psalm, being, (as the caption has it,) a com- 
plaint to God of the enemies' conspiracies, and 
a prayer against them that oppress the church. 
He concluded his exposition with an apology, 
begging his hearers to pardon the poorness and 
meanness and brokenness of his meditations, 
adding, " my dear brother here will by and by 
mend all." 

He once expressed the fear that his old friends 
and neighbors, Messrs. Cotton, of Boston, and 
Mather, of Dorchester, who had gone to heaven 
before him, would suspect him to have gone the 
wrong way, because he staid so long behind them. 

Towards the close of his life his mind dwelt 
much on the coming of the Son of Man, and 
whatever theme he began to converse upon, he 
soon fell into a strain of remarks upon this sub- 
ject. On one occasion some one brought him 
intelligence of certain sad events whereby the 
Churches of New England were much afflicted. 
His reply w^as, " Behold some of the clouds in 
which we must look for the coming of the Son 
of Man." 

Mr. Walter coming in to see him on his 
dying bed, Mr. Eliot said, " Brother, thou art 
welcome to my very soul. Pray retire to thy 
study for me, and give mc leave to be gone," 



274 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

meaning- that he should pray for his speedy 
release. 

Being asked how he did, he said, " Alas, I 
have lost every thing ; my understanding leaves 
me, my memory fails me, my utterance fails 
me ; but I thank God my charity holds out still ; 
I find that rather grows than fails." 

Speaking of the work in which he had been 
engaged among the Indians, he said, " There 
is a cloud, a dark cloud, upon the work of the 
gospel, among the poor Indians. The Lord 
revive and prosper that work, and grant that it 
may live when I am dead. It is a work which 
I have been doing much and long about. But 
what was the word I spoke last ? I recall that 
word, my doings ! Alas ! they have been poor 
and small, and lean doings ; and I'll be the man 
that shall throw the first stone at them all." 

The Rev. Increase Mather had gone to Eng- 
land on business connected with the ecclesiasti- 
cal affairs of New England. Mr. Eliot wrote 
the following letter to him, and it is the last 
writing of his of which we have any account. 

" Reverend and beloved Mr. Increase Mather. 

I cannot write. Read Neh. 2 : 10. When 
Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, 
the Ammonite heard of it, it g-rieved them ex- 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 275 

ceedingly that there was come a man to seek 
the welfare of the children of Israel. 

" Let thy blessed soul feed full and fat upon 
this and other Scriptures. All other things I 
leave to other men, and rest, 

Your loving Brother, 

John Eliot." 



One of Mr. Eliot's last expressions was this, 
Welcome joy ! His last breath was spent in 
calling upon those who stood around his dying 
bed to " Pray, Pray, Pray." He died in the 
beginning of the year 1690, in the eighty -sixth 
year of his age. 

Before his death, Mr. Eliot had the pleasure 
of seeing several faithful men raised up to labor 
among the Indians ; among whom were Daniel 
Gookin, James Noyce, Eowland Cotton, Peter 
Thacher, Grindal Rawson, Goddefred Dettins, 
and M. Bondet. Mather says, "about the year 
1700, through the blessing of God in this one 
Massachusetts province, the Indians have most- 
ly embraced the Christian religion. There are 
I suppose, more than thirty congregations of 
Indians, and many more than three thousand 
Indians, in this one province, calling on God in 
Christ, and hearing of his glorious Word." 



276 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 

In writing these pages, I have before me a 
copy of Eliot's Indian Bible, to which are an- 
nexed his Psalms and Hymns, in the Indian 
tongue, and a short Catechism. Here is the 
monument of John Eliot ; and what monument 
of earthly greatness is to be compared with it ! 
The kings of the earth sleep in the great cathe- 
dral ; the beautiful, ivy grown, ruined abbey 
crowns the sepulchre of the novelist and poet ; 
the marble statue immortalizes the name and 
deeds of the conqueror by land or sea. They 
are but the grass that withereth, and the flower 
which fadeth, " but the word of the Lord en- 
dureth forever." " Endureth " ? There is not 
one Indian on this continent, or on the face of 
the earth, that can read this book. It can never 
guide another soul to God. As j^ou look upon 
its title page, written in an unknown tongue, 
you see these words, Up-Biblum God, the 
Book of God. How significant, we may say, 
the appearance of those words when we consider 
the condition of the book bereaved of the race 
who once read it. " Up-Biblum God." Like 
the man-child of the woman clothed with the 
sun who fled into the wilderness, and whose 
child was caught up unto God, and to his throne, 
this book, having done its office here, is, in a 
certain sense, caug'ht up to God ; and there it 



1 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 277 

" endurelh forever," in the hearts and souls of 
redeemed savages. 

This book will never, of course, be reprinted, 
and copies of it are becoming- rare. But if we 
wished to send something to a desponding- 
missionary, or an example of condescension and 
love for souls to a minister who despises and 
neglects his poor^ humble people, no better gift 
could be selected than a copy of Eliot's Bible. 
What gentle rebuke, what exhortation and en- 
couragement, its long barbarous words Avould 
speak oftentimes in the minister's or mission- 
ary's study. We might appropriately inscribe 
on its cover the third reflection of Mr. Eliot on 
returning from one of his visits to Nonantum, 
and send it to every missionary station round 
the globe : " There is no need of miraculous or 
extraordinary gifts in seeking the salvation of 
the most depraved of the human family." 

The mention of this Bible may lead us to 
think of that half million of wild Indians and 
that million and a half of partly civilized Indians 
who now occupy the wilderness of the west. It 
bids us attempt their conversion ; it shows us 
that no difficulties are too mighty for the Gos- 
pel to overcome, no discouragements too great 
for true Christian faith and courage. The ob- 

VOL. III. 24 



278 



LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 



jects of our forefathers' zeal and hope in coming 
to these shores, are now beyond the Rocky 
Mountains. A wilderness still invites our in- 
creasing missionary efforts, as a wilderness once 
invited the labors of the Pilgrims. Wronged 
and driven away by the white man, still they 
cry : 




APPENDIX. 



-* ■» 9 »■ 



A, — See page 201. 

(Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc. 1732.) 

" The following fabulous Traditions and Customs 
of the Indians of Martha's Vineyard, were 
communicated to Benjamin Basset, Esq. of 
Chilmark, by Thomas Coopek, a half blooded 
Indian, of Gay head, aged about sixty years ; 
and which, he says, he obtained of his grand- 
mother, who, to use his own expression, was 
a stout girl, when the English came to the 
island. 

The first Indian who came to the Vineyard, was 
brought thither with his dog on a cake of ice. 
When he came to Gay Head, he found a very 
large man, whose name was Moshup. He had 
a wife and five children, four sons and one 
daughter; and lived in the Den. He used to 
catch whales, and then pluck up trees, and make 
a fire, and roast them. The coals of the trees, 
and the bones of the whales, are now to be seen. 



250 APPENDIX. 

After he was tired of staying here, he told his 
children to go and play ball on a beach that 
joined Noman's Land to Gay Head. He then 
made a mark with his toe across the beach at 
each end, and so deep, that the water followed, 
and cut away the beach ; so that his children 
were in fear of drowning. They took their sis- 
ter up, and held her out of the water. He told 
them to act as if they were going to kill whales ; 
and they were all turned into killers, (a fish so 
called.) The sister was dressed in large stripes. 
He gave them a strict charge always to be kind 
to her. His wife mourned the loss of her chil- 
dren so exceedingly, that he threw her away. 
She fell upon Seconet, near the rocks, where 
she lived some time, exacting contribution of all 
who passed by w^ater. After a while she was 
changed into a stone. The entire shape re- 
mained for many years. But after the English 
came, some of them broke off the arms, head, 
&c. but the most of the body remains to this 
day. Moshup went away nobody knows whither. 
He had no conversation with the Indians, but 
was kind to them, by sending whales, &c. 
ashore to them to eat. But after they grew 
thick around him he left them. 

Whenever the Indians worshipped, they al- 
ways sang and danced, and then begged of the 



APPENDIX. 281 

sun and moon, as they thought most likely to 
hear them, to send them the desired favour ; 
most generally rain or fair weather, or freedom 
from their enemies or sickness. 

Before the English came among the Indians, 
there were two disorders of which they most 
generally died, viz. the consumption and the 
yellow fever. The latter they could always lay 
in the following manner. After it had raged 
and swept off a number, those who were well 
met to lay it. The rich, that is, such as had a 
canoe, skins, axes, &c. brought them. They 
took their seat in a circle ; and all the poor sat 
around, without. The richest then proposed to 
begin to lay the sickness ; and having in his 
hand something in shape resembling his canoe, 
skin, or whatever his riches were, he threw it 
up in the air; and whoever of the poor without 
could take it, the property it was intended to re- 
semble became forever transferred to him or her. 
After the rich had thus given away all their 
moveable property to the poor, they looked out 
the handsomest and most sprightly young man 
in the assembly, and put him into an entire new 
wigwam, built of every thing new for that pur- 
pose. They then .formed into two files at a 
small distance from each other. One standing 
in the space at each end, put fire to the bottom 
24# 



2S2 APPENDIX. 

of the wigwam on all parts, and fell to singing 
and dancing. Presently the youth would leap 
out of the flames, and fall down to appearance 
dead. Him they committed to the care of five 
virgins, prepared for that purpose, to restore to 
life again. The term required for this would be 
uncertain, from six to forty-eight hours; during 
which time the dance must be kept up. When 
he was restored, he vvould tell, that he had been 
carried in a large thing high up in the air, where 
he came to a great company of white people, 
with whom he had interceded hard to have the 
distemper layed ; and generally after much per- 
suasion, would obtain a promise, or answer of 
peace which never failed of laying the dis- 
temper." 

" Inscription copied from a grave stone at Gay Head. 

1 2 3 

YEUUH'WOHHOK'SIPSIN' 

4 5 

SIL'PAUL'NOHTOBEYONTOK' 

6 7 

AGED' 49 : YEARS'NUPPOOP'TAH' 
AUGUST'24™1787. 

EXPLANATIONS. 

1. Here. 2. The body. 3. Lies. 4. Silas Paul. 
5. An ordained preacher. 6. Died. 7. Then, or in, ^' 



APPENDIX. 283 

B. — See page 41. 

In connection with the remarks in the forego- 
ing pages on the climate and soil of New Eng- 
land, the following extract from a piece by Rev. 
John Higginson of Salem, 1629, will be read 
with interest. It is taken from the Collections 
of the Mass. Hist. Society, 1792. 

NEW-ENGLANDS PLANTATION. 

Or, a short and true Description of the Com- 
modities and Discommodities of that countrey. 
Written in the year 1629, by Mr. Higge- 
soN, a Reverend Divine, now there resident. 
Whereunto is added a Letter, sent by Mr. 
Graves, an Enginere, out of New-England, 
Reprinted from the third edition, London, 
1530. 

Letting passe our voyage by sea,^ we will now 
begin our discourse on the shore of New- 
England. And because the life and wel-fare of 
every creature heere below, and the commodious- 
nesse of the countrey whereat such creatures 
live, doth by the most wise ordering of God's 

* For the Journal of Mr. Higginson's Voyage, see Hutchinson's 
Collection of Papers, page 32, 



284 APPENDIX 

providence, depend next unto biniselfe, upon the 
temperature and disposition of the foure ele- 
ments, earth, water, aire, and fire (for as of the 
mixture of all these, all sublunary things are 
composed ; so by the more or lesse enjoyment of 
the wholesome temper and convenient use of 
these, consistcth the onely well-being both of 
man and beast in a more or Jesse comfortable 
measure in all countreys under ihe heavens) 
therefore I will indeavour to shew you what 
New-England is by the consideration of each of 
these apart, and truly indeavour by God's helpe 
to report nothing but the naked truth, and that 
both to tell you of the discommodities as well as 
of the commodities, though as the idle proverbe 
is, travellers may lye by authorities and so may 
take too much sinfuU libertie that way. Yet I 
may say of my selfe as once Nehemiah did in 
another case : Shall such a man as I lye ? No 
verily : It becommeth not a preacher of truth to 
be a writer of falshod in any degree : And 
therefore I have beene carefuU to report nothing 
of New-England but what I have partly seene 
with mine own eyes, and partly heard and en- 
quired from the mouths of verie honest and re- 
ligious persons, who, by living in the countrey a 
good space of time, have had experience and 



I 



APPENDIX. 285 

knowledge of the state thereof, and whose testi- 
monies I doe beleeve as my selfe. 

First therefore of the earth of New-England 
and all the appertenances thereof: It is a land 
of divers and sundry sorts all about Masathu- 
lets Bay, and at Charles river is as fat blacke 
earth as can be seene any where : and in other 
places you have a clay soyle, in other gravell, 
in other sandy, as it is all about our plantation 
at Salem, for so our towne is now named. 
Psal. 76 : 2. 

The forme of the earth here in the superfices 
of it is neither too flat in the plainnesse, nor too 
high in hils, but partakes of both in a mediocri- 
tie, and fit for pasture, or for plow or meddow 
ground, as men please to employ it : though all 
the countrey bee as it were a thicke wood for 
the general!, yet in divers places there is much 
ground cleared by the Indians, and especially 
about the plantation : And I am told that about 
three miles from us a man may stand on a little 
hilly place and see divers thousands of acres of 
ground as good as need to be, and not a tree in 
the same. It is thought here is good clay to 
make bricke and tyles and earthen-pot as need 
to be. At this instant we are setting a brick-kill 
on worke to make brickes and tiles for the build- 
ing of our houses. For stone, here is plentie of 



286 APPENDIX 

slates at the Isle of Slate in Masalhulets bay, 
and lime-stone, free-stone, and smooth-stone, 
and iron-stone, and marble-stone also in such 
store, that we have great rocks of it, and a har- 
bour hard by. Our plantation is from thence 
called Marble-harbour. 

Of minerals there hath yet beene but little triall 
made, yet we are not without great hope of being 
furnished in that soyle. 

The fertilitie of the soyle is to be admired at, 
as appeareth in the aboundance of grasse that 
groweth everie where, both verie thicke, verie 
long, and verie high in divers places : But it 
groweth verie wildly with a great stalke and a 
broad and ranker blade, because it never had 
been eaten with cattle, nor mowed with a sythe, 
and scldome trampled on by foot. It is scarce 
to bee beleeved how our kine and goates, horses 
and hogges, doe thrive and prosper here and like 
well of this countrey. 

In our plantation we have already a quart of 
milke for a penny : but the aboundant encrease 
of corne proves this countrey to bee a wonder- 
ment. Thirtie, fortie, fiftie, sixtie are ordinarie 
here : Yea Joseph's encrease in ^gypt is out- 
stript here wath us. Our planters hope to have 
more then a hundred fould this yere : And all 
this while I am within compasse ; what will you 



APPENDIX. 2S7 

say of two hundred fould and upwards? It is 
almost incredible what great gaine some of our 
English planters have had by our Indiane corne. 
Credible persons have assured me, and the 
partie himselfe avouched the truth of it to me, 
that of the setting of 13 gallons of corne hee 
hath had encrease of it 52 hogsheads, every 
hogshead holding seven bushels of London meas- 
ure, and every bushell was by him sold and 
trusted to the Indians for so much beaver as was 
worth 13 shillings ; and so of this 13 gallons of 
corne, w^hich was worth 6 shillings S pence, he 
made about 327 pounds of it the ycere following, 
as by reckoning will appeare : where you may 
see how God blessed husbandry in this land. 
There is not such greate and plentifuU eares of 
corne I suppose any where else to bee found but 
in this countrey : Because also of varietie of 
colours, as red, blew, and yellow, &c. and of 
one corne there springeth four or five hundred. 
I have sent you many eares of divers colours 
that you might see the truth of it. 

Little children here by setting of corne may 
earne much more then their owne mainte- 
nance. 

They have tryed our English corne at New 
Plimmouth plantation, so that all our several 



2SS APPENDIX. 

graines will grow here verie well, and have a 
fitting soyle for their nature. 

Our Governor hath store of greene pease 
growing in his garden, as good as ever I eat in 
England. 

This country aboundeth naturally with store 
of roots of great varitie and good to eat. Our 
turnips, parsnips, and carrots are here both big- 
ger and sweeter then is ordinary to be found in 
England. Here are store of pumpions, cow- 
combers, and other things of that nature which 
1 know not. Also divers excellent pot-herbs 
grow abundantly among the grasse, as straw- 
berrie leaves in all places of the countrey, and 
plentie of strawberries in their time, and penny- 
royall, wintersaverie, sorrell, brookelime, liver- 
wort, carvell, and watercresses, also leekes and 
onions are ordinarie, and divers physicall herbs. 
Here are also aboundance of other sv^reet herbs 
delightful to the smell, whose names we know 
not, &c. and plentie of single damaske roses 
verie sweete ; and two kinds of herbes that bare 
two kinds of flowers very sweet, which they say, 
are as good to make cordage or cloath as any 
hempe or flaxe we have. 

Excellent vines are here up and downe in the 
woods. Our Governour hath already planted a 
vineyard with great hope of encrease. 



APPENDIX 



289 



Also, mulberries, plums, raspberries, corrance, 
chesnuts, filberds, walnuts, smalnuts, hurtle- 
beries, and hawes of whitethorne neere as good 
as our cherries in England, tliey grow in pientie 

here. 

For wood there is no better in the world 
I thinke, here being foure sorts of oke differing 
both in the leafe, timber, and colour, all excel- 
lent good. There is also good ash, elme, wil- 
low, birch, beech, saxafras, juniper, cipres, cedar, 
spruce, pines, and firre that will yeeld abun- 
dance of turpentine, pitch, tarre, masts, and 
other materials for building both of ships and 
houses. Also here are store of sumacke trees, 
they are good for dying and tanning of leather, 
likewise such trees yeeld a precious gem called 
wine benjamin, that they say is excellent for 
perfumes. Also here be divers roots and berries 
wherewith the Indians dye excellent holding 
colours that no raine nor washing can alter. 
Also, wee have materials to make sope-ashes 
and salt-peter in aboundance. 

For beasts there are some beares, and they 
say some lyons also ; for they have been seen at 
Cape Anne. Also here are several sorts of 
deere, some whereof bring three or four young 
ones at once, which is not ordinarie in England. 
Also wolves, foxes, beavers, otters, martins, great 

VOL. III. 25 



290 APPENDIX. 

wild cats, and a great beast called a molke as 
bigge as an oxe. I have seen the skins of all 
these beasts since I came to this plantation ex- 
cepting lyons. Also here are great store of 
squerrels, some greater, and some smaller and 
lesser : there are some of the lesser sort, they 
tell me, that by a certaine skill will fly from tree 
to tree, though they stand farre distant. 

Of the waters of New-England, with the things 
belonging to the same. 

New-England hath water enough, both salt and 
fresh, the greatest sea in the world, the Atlan- 
ticke sea, runs all along the coast thereof. 
There are abundance of Hands along the shore, 
some full of wood and masts to feed swine ; and 
others cleere of wood, and fruitful to bear corne. 
Also wee have store of excellent harbours for 
ships, as at Cape Anne, and at Masathulets Bay, 
and at Salem, and at many other places : and 
they are the better because for strangers there 
is a verie difficult and dangerous passage into 
them, but unto such as are well acquainted with 
them, they are easie and safe enough. The 
aboundance of sea-fish are almost beyond be- 
leeving, and sure I should scarce have beleeved 
it, except I had seene it with mine owne eyes. 



APPENDIX. 291 

I saw great store of whales, and crampusse, and 
such aboundance of mackerils that it would as- 
tonish one to behold, likewise cod-fish in abound- 
ance on the coast, and in their season are plen- 
tifully taken. There is a fish called a basse, a 
most sweet and wholesome fish as ever 1 did 
eate, it is altogether as good as our fresh sam- 
mon, and the season of their comming was begun 
when wee came first to New-England in June, 
and so continued about three months space. Of 
this fish our fishers take many hundreds to- 
gether, which I have seen lying on the shore to 
my admiration ;• yea their nets ordinarily take 
more than they are able to hale to land, and for 
want of boats and men they are constrained to 
let a many goe after they have taken them, and 
yet sometimes they fill two boates at a time with 
them. And besides basse wee take plentie of 
scate and thornbacks, and abundance of lobsters 
and the least boy in the plantation may both 
catch and eat what he will of them. For my 
owne part I was soone cloyed with them, they 
were so great, and fat, and lussious. I have 
seene some myselfe that have weighed 16 pound, 
but others have had divers times so great lob- 
sters as have weighed 25 pound, as they assure 
mee. Also heere is abundance of herring, tur- 
but, sturgion, cuskes, hadocks, mullets, eeles^ 



292 APPENDIX. 



crabbes, muskles, and oysters. Besides there is 
probability that the countrey is of an excellent 
temper for the making of salt : For since our 
comming our fishermen have brought home very 
good salt which they found candied by the 
standing of the sea water and the heat of the 
sunne, upon a rocke by the sea shore : and in 
divers salt marishes that some have gone 
through, they have found some salt in some 
places crushing under their feete and cleaving 
to their shooes. 

And as for fresh water, the countrey is full of 
dainty springs, and some great rivers, and some 
lesser brookes ; and at Masathulets Bay they 
digged wels and found water at three foot deepe 
in most places : And neere Salem thay have as 
fine cleare water as we can desire, and we may 
digge wels and find water where we list. 

Thus wee see both land and sea abound with 
store of blessings for the comfortable sustenance 
of man's life in New-England. 

Of the aire of New-England with the temper 
and creatures in it. 

The temper of the aire of New-England is one 
speciall thing that commends this place. Ex- 
perience doth manifest that there is hardly a 
more healthfull place to be found in the world 



APPENDIX. 293 

that agreeth belter with our English bodyes. 
Many that have been weake and sickly in 
old England, by comming hither have beene 
thoroughly healed and growne healthfuU strong. 
For here is an extraordinarie cleere and dry aire 
that is of a most healing nature to all such as 
are of a cold, melancholy, flegmatick, rheumat- 
ick temper of body. None can more truly 
speake hereof by their owne experience then my 
seife. My friends that knew me can well tell 
how verie sickly I have bin and continually in 
physick, being much troubled with a tormenting 
paine through an extraordinarie weakncsse of 
my stomacke, and aboundance of melancholicke 
humors; but since I came hither on this voyage, 
I thanke God, I have had perfect health, and 
freed from paine and vomiting, having a stom- 
acke to digest the hardest and coursest fare, who 
before could not eat finest meat ; and whereas 
my stomache could onely digest and did require 
such drinke as was both strong and stale, now I 
can and doe often times drink New-England 
water verie well ; and I that have not gone with- 
out a cap for many yeeres together, neither durst 
leave off the same, have now cast away my cap, 
and doe weare none at all in the day time : And 
whereas beforetirne I cloathed my selfe with 
double cloaths and thicke Avaistcoates to keep 
25* 



294 APPENDIX. 

me warme, even in the summer time, I doe now 
goe as thin clad as any, onely wearing a light 
stuffe cassocke upon my shirt, and stuffe breeches 
of one thickness without linings. Besides I have 
one of my children that was formerly most 
lamentably handled with sore breaking out of 
both his hands and feet of the king's-evill, but 
since he came hither hee is very well ever he 
was, and there is hope of perfect recoverie 
shortly even by the very wholesomnesse of the 
aire, altering, digesting and drying up the cold 
and crude humours of the body : And therefore 
I thinke it is a wise course for al cold complec- 
tions to come to take physick in New-England : 
for a sup of New-England's aire is better then a 
whole draught of Old England's ale. 

In the summer time, in the midst of July and 
August, it is a good deale hotter then in Old 
England : And in winter, January and Febru- 
ary are much colder, as they say : But the 
spring and autumne are of a middle temper. 

Fowles of the aire are plentifull here, and of 
all sorts as we have in England, as farre as I 
can learn, and a great many of strange fowles 
which we know not. Whilst I was writing these 
things, one of our men brought home an eagle 
which hee had killed in the wood : They say 
they are good meate. Also here are many kinds 



A r p^E N D I X . 295 

of excellent hawkes, both sea hawkes and land 
hawkes : And my self walking in the woods 
with another in company, sprung a patridge so 
bigge that through the heaviness of his body 
could fly but a little way : They that have killed 
them, say they are as bigge as our hens. Here 
are likewise aboundance of turkies often killed 
in the woods, farre greater then our English 
turkies, and exceeding fat, sweet, and fleshy, for 
here they have aboundance of feeding all the 
yeere long, as strawberries, in summer al places 
are full of them, and all manner of berries and 
fruits. In the winter time I have seene flockes 
of pidgeons, and have eaten of them : They doe 
fly from tree to tree as other birds doe, which 
our pidgeons will not doe in England: They 
are of all colours as ours are, but their wings 
and tayles are far longer, and therefore it is 
likely they fly swifter to escape the terrible 
hawkes in this country. In winter time this 
country doth abound with wild geese, wild ducks, 
and other sea fowle, that a great part of winter 
the planters have eaten nothing but roast-meate 
of divers fowles which they have killed. 

Thus you have heard of the earth, water and 
aire of New-England, now it may bee you ex- 
pect something to bee said of the fire proportion- 
able to the rest of the elements. Indeede I 



296 A P P E N«D 1 X . 

thinke New-England may boast of this element 
more then of all the rest : For though it bee 
here somewhat cold in the winter, yet here we 
have plenty of fire to warme us, and that a great 
deal cheaper then they sel billets and faggots in 
London : Nay, all Europe is not able to afford 
to make so great fires as New-England. A 
poore servant here that is to possesse but 50 
acres of land, may afford to give more wood for 
timber and fire as good as the world yeelds, then 
many noble men in England can afford to do. 
Here is good living for those that love good 
fires. And although New-England have no tal- 
low to make candles of, yet by the aboundance 
of the fish thereof, it can afford oil for lampes. 
Yea our pine-trees that are the most plentifull of 
all wood, doth allow us plenty of candles which 
are very useful! in a house : And they are such 
candles as the Indians commonly use, having no 
other, and they are nothing else but the wood of 
the pine tree cloven in two little slices, some- 
thing thin, which are so full of the moysture of 
turpentine and pitch, that they burne as cleere 
as a torch. I have sent you some of them that 
you may see the experience of them. 

Thus of New-England's commodities : now I 
will tell you of some discommodities that are 
here to be found. 



APPENDIX. 297 



First, ill the summer season for these three 
months, June, July, and August, we are troubled 
much with little flyes called musketoes, being 
the same they are troubled with in Lincolneshire 
and the Fens ; and they are nothing but gjiats, 
which except they bee smoked out of their 
houses are troublesome in the night season. 

Secondly, in the winter season for two months 
space, the earth is commonly covered with snow, 
which is accompanied with sharp biting frosts, 
something more sharpe then is in Old England, 
and therefore are forced to make great fires. 

Thirdly, the countrey being very full of woods, 
and wildernesses, doth also much abound with 
snakes and serpents of strange colours, and huge 
greatnesse : yea there are some serpents called 
rattle-snakes that have rattles in their tailes, that 
will not fly from a man as others will, but will 
flye upon him, and sting him so mortally, that 
hee will dye within a quarter of an houre after, 
except the partie stinged have about him some 
of the root of an herbe called snake-weed to bite 
on, and then hee shall receive no harme : but 
yet seldom falles it out that any hurt is done by 
these. About three ye^rs since, an Indian was 
stung to death by one of them, but wee heard of 
£ione since that time. 

Fourthly and lastly, here wants as it were 



298 APPENDIX. 

good company of honest christians to bring with 
them horses, kine, and sheepe, to make use of 
this fruilfull land : great pitty it is to see so 
much good ground for corne and for grasse as 
any^s under the heavens, to ly aUogether un- 
occupied, when so many honest men and their 
families in Old England through the populous- 
nesse thereof, do make evry hard shift to live 
one by the other. 

Now, thus you know what New-England is, 
as also with the commodities and discommodities 
thereof: Now I will shew you a little of the 
inhabitants thereof, and their government. 

For their governors they have kings, which 
they call Saggamores, some greater, and some 
lesser, according to the number of their subjects. 

The greatest Saggamores about us can not 
make above three hundred men,^~ and other 
lesse Saggamores have not above fifteen sub- 
jects, and others neere about us but two. 

Their subjects above twelve years since t 
were swept away by a great and grievous 
plague that was amongst them, so that there are 
verie few left to inhabite the country. 

The Indians are not able to make use of the 
one fourth part of the land, neither have they 
any settled places, as townes to dwell in, nor 



* That is fighting men. 
t 1617. 



APPENDIX. 



299 



any ground as they challenge for their own pos- 
session, but change their habitation from place 
to place. 

For their statures, they are a tall and strong 
limmed people, their colours are tawney, they 
goe naked, save onely they are in part covered 
with beasts skins on one of their shoulders, 
and weare something before ; their haire is 
generally blacke, and cut before like our gentle- 
women, and one locke longer than the rest, 
much like to our gentelmen, which fashion I 
thinke came from hence into England. 

For their weapons, they have bowes and ar- 
rovves, some of them headed with bone, and 
some with brasse : I have sent you some of them 
for an example. 

The men for the most part live idely, they do 
nothing but hunt and fish : Their wives set their 
corne and doe all their other worke. They 
have little houshold stufTe, as a kettle, and some 
other vessels like trayes, spoones, dishes, and 
baskets. 

Their houses are verie little and homely, 
being made with small poles pricked into the 
ground, and so bended and fastened at the tops, 
and on the sides they are matted with boughs 
and covered on the roof with sedge and old mats, 
and for their beds that they take their rest on, 
they have a mat. 



300 APPENDIX 

They doe generally professe to like well of 
our coming and planting here ; partly because 
their is abundance of ground that they cannot 
possesse nor make use of, and partly because our 
being here will bee a meanes both of relief to 
them when they want, and also a defence from 
their enemies, wherewith (I say) before this 
plantation began, they were often indangered. 

For their religion they do worship two Gods, 
a good God and an evil God : The good God 
they call Tantum, and their evil God whom they 
fear will doe them hurt, they call Squantum. 

For their dealing with us, we neither fear 
them nor trust them, for fourtie of our muske- 
teeres will drive five hundred of them out of the 
field. We use them kindly ; they will come into 
our houses sometimes by half a dozen or half 
a score at a time when we are at victuals, but 
will ask or take nothing but what we give them. 

We purpose to learn their language as soon 
as we can, which will be a means to do them 
good. * 

Of. the present condition of the Plantation, and 
what it is. 

When we came first to Nehum-kek,=^ we found 
about half a score houses, and a faire house 

♦ Or Naumkeaj . Salem. 



APPENDIX. 301 

newly built for the Governor, we found also 
aboundance of come planted by them, very good 
and well liking. And we brought with us about 
two hundred passengers and planters more, 
which by common consent of the old planters 
were all combined together into one body poli- 
ticke, under the same Governour. 

There are in all of us both old and new plan- 
ters about three hundred, whereof two hundred 
of them are settled at Nehum-kek, now called 
Salem : And the rest have planted themselves 
at Masathulets Bay, beginning to build a towne 
there which wee do call Cherton, or Charles 
Town. 

We that are settled at Salem make what 
haste we can to build houses, so that within a 
short time we shall have a faire towne. 

We have great ordnance, wherewith we doubt 
not but we shall fortifie ourselves in a short time 
to keepe out a potent adversary. But that which 
is our greatest comfort, and meanes of defence 
above all other, is, that we have here the true 
religion and holy ordinances of Almighty God 
taught amongst us : Thankes be to God, wee 
have here plenty of preaching, and diligent cate- 
chizing, with strict and carefull exercise, and 
good and commendable orders to bring our peo- 
ple into a christian conversation with whom we 

VOL. III. 26 



302 APPENDIX. 

have to doe withall. And thus wee doubt not 
but God will be with us, and if God be with us, 
who can he against us ? 

[Here ends Master Higgeson's relation of 
New-England.] 

A letter sent from New England, by Master 
Graves, Engyiiere, noiv there resident. 

Thus much I can afHrme in generall, that 
I never came in a more goodly country in all 
my life, all things considered : If it hath not at 
any time been manured and husbanded, yet it is 
very beautifull in open lands, mixed with goodly 
woods, and again open plaines, in some places 
five hundred acres, some places more, some 
lesse, not much troublesome for to cleer for the 
plough to goe in, no place barren, but on the 
tops of the hils ; the grasse and weeds grow up 
to a man's face, in the lowlands and by fresh 
rivers, aboundance of grasse and large meddowes 
without any tree or shrubbe to hinder the sith. 
I never saw, except in Hungaria, unto which I 
alwayes paralell this countrie, in all our most 
respects, for every thing that is heare eyther 
sowne or planted prospereth far better then in 
Old-England : The increase of come is here 
farre beyond expectation, as I have seene here 
by experience in barly, the which because it is 
so much above your conception I will not men- 



APPENDIX. 



303 



tion. And cattle doe prosper very well, and 
those that are bredd here farr greater than those 
with you in England. Vines doe grow here 
plentifully laden with the biggest grapes that 
ever I saw, some I have seen foure inches 
about, so that I am bold to say of this countrie, 
as it is commonly said in Germany of Hungaria, 
that for cattel, corne, and wine it excelleth. We 
have many more hopeful! commodities here in 
this country, the which time will teach to make 
good use of: In the mean lime wee abound with 
such things which next under God doe make us 
subsist : as fish, foule, deere, and sundrie sorts 
of fruits, as musk-millions, water-millions, In- 
dian pompions, Indian pease, beanes, and many 
other odde fruits that I cannot name ; all which 
are made good and pleasant through this maine 
blessing of God, the healthfulnesse of the coun- 
trie which far exceedelh all parts that ever I 
have beene in : It is observed that few or none 
doe here fal sicke, unless of the scurvy, that they 
bring from aboard the ship with them, whereof 
I have cured some of my companie onely by 
labour. 

C— See page 204. ^ 

See Morell's poem on New England, Mass. 
Hist. Coll., 1792. 



304 APPENDIX. 

D.— See page 222. 

The following letter to King Charles II. ac- 
companied the presentation of the New Testa- 
ment in the Indian tongue. The letter was 
written and sent by the Commissioners of the 
United Colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, 
Connecticut and New Haven. 

" To the High and Mighty Prince, Charles the 
second, by the grace of God, King of Eng- 
land, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender 
of the faith, &c. 
*' The Commissioners of the United Colonies in 
New England, wish increase of all happiness. 

" Most dread Sovereign, 
" If our weak apprehensions have not misled 
us, this work \vill be no unacceptable present to 
your Majesty, as having a greater interest there- 
in, than we believe is generally understood, 
which upon this occasion we conceive it our 
duty to declare. 

" The people of these four colonies (confed- 
erate for mutual defence, in the times of the late 
distractions of our dear native country) your 
Majesty's natural born subjects, by the favour 
and grace of your royal father and grandfatliBr 
of famous m^emory, put themselves upon this 
great and hazardous undertaking, of planting 



APPENDIX 



305 



themselves at their own charge in these remote 
ends of the earth ; that without offence or pro- 
vocation to our dear brethren and countrymen, 
we might enjoy that liberty to worship God, 
which our own conscience informed us was not 
only our right but duty ; as also that we, if it so 
pleased God, might be instrumental to spread 
the light of the gospel, the knowledge of the son 
of God, our saviour, to the poor, barbarous- 
heathen ; which by his late Majesty, in some of 
our patents, is declared to be the principal aim, 
" These honest and pious intentions have 
through the grace of God and our kings, been 
seconded with proportionable success. For, omit- 
ting the immunities indulged by your High- 
ness's royal predecessors, we have been greatly 
encouraged by your Majesty's gracious expres- 
sions of favour and approbation, signified unto 
the address made by the principal of our colo- 
nies ; to which the rest do most cordially sub- 
scribe ; though wanting the like seasonable op- 
portunity, they have been till now deprived of 
the means to congratulate your Majesty's happy 
restitution, after your long sufferings ; which we 
implore may yet be graciously accepted, that we 
may be equal partakers of your royal favour 
and moderation ; which hath been so illustrious, 
that- to admiration, the animosities of different 
26* 



306 APPENDIX. 

persuasions of men have been so soon composed, 
and so much cause of hope, that, unless the sins 
of the nation prevent, a blessed calm will suc- 
ceed the late horrid confusions of church and 
state. And shall not we, dread sovereign, your 
subjects of these colonies, of the same faith and 
belief in all points of doctrine with our country- 
men and other reformed churches, though per- 
haps not alike persuaded in some matters of 
order, which in outward respects hath been un- 
happy for us, — promise and assure ourselves of 
all just favour and indulgence from a prince so 
graciously and happily endowed ? 

" The other part of our errand hither hath 
been attended with endeavours and blessing; 
many of the wild Indians being taught, and un- 
derstanding, the doctrine of the christian re- 
ligion, and with much affection attending such 
preachers as are sent to teach them. Many of 
their children are instructed to write and read ; 
and some of them have proceeded further to at- 
tain the knowledge of the Latin and the Greek 
tongues, and are brought up with our English 
youth in university learning. There are di- 
vers of them that can and do read some parts 
of the scripture, and some catechisms which 
formerly have been translated into their own 



APPENDIX. 



307 



language : which hath occasioned the undertak- 
ing of a great work, viz. the printing the whole 
bible : which, being translated by a painful la- 
bourer among them, who was desirous to see the 
work accomplished in his days, hath already 
proceeded to the finishing of the new testament ; 
which we here humbly present to your Majesty, 
as the first fruit and accomplishment of the pious 
design of your royal ancestors. The old testa- 
ment is now under the press, wanting and crav- 
ing your royal favour and assistance for the 
perfecting thereof. 

'* We may not conceal, though this work hath 
been begun and prosecuted by such instruments 
as God has raised up here ; yet the chief charge 
and cost, which hath supported and carried it 
thus far, hath been from the charity and piety of 
divers of our well afiected countrymen in Eng- 
land ; who, being sensible of our inability in that 
respect, and studious to promote so good a work, 
contributed large sums of money, which were to 
be improved according to the direction and order 
of the then prevailing powers ; which hath been 
faithfully and religiously attended, both there 
and here, according to the pious intentions of the 
benefactors. And we most humbly beseech your 
Majesty, that a matter of so much devotion and 



308 APPENDIX. 

piety, tending so much to the honour of God, 
may suffer no disappointment through any legal 
defect, without the fault of the donors, or poor 
Indians, who only receive the benefit ; but that 
your Majesty be graciously pleased to establish 
and confirm the same ; being contrived and 
done, as we conceive, in that first year of your 
Majesty's reign, of this book was begun and 
now finished the first year of your establish- 
ment : which doth not only presage the happy 
success of your Highness's government, but will 
be a perpetual monument, that by your Majes- 
ty's favour, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 
was made known to the Indians ; an honour 
whereof, we are assured, your Majesty will not 
a little esteem. 

" Sir, the shine of your royal favour upon 
these undertakings will make these tender plants 
to flourish, notwithstanding any malevolent as- 
pect from those that bear evil will to this Sion ; 
and render your Majesty more illustrious and 
glorious to after generations. 

" The God of heaven long preserve and bless 
your Majesty with many happy days, to his 
glory, the good and comfort of his church and 
people. Amen." 



APPENDIX. 309 

E.— See page 182. 

The Society for Propagating the Gospel 
among the Indians has been mentioned several 
times in this work. 

About the year 1648, during the Protectorate 
of Cromwell, when the Presbyterians and Inde- 
pendents had influence in England, a Society 
was formed through, the influence, it is believed, 
of Gov. Winslow, and called the Society for 
Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and 
others in North America. 

It is somewhere stated respecting Cromwell 
that he had conceived a very extensive scheme 
for the universal propagation of the Gospel, bor- 
rowing the zeal and ingenuity of the Jesuits, and 
intending to meet and counteract their efforts 
everywhere. This scheme perished with him 
in his early death. Even the Society for Propa- 
gating the Gospel among the Indians, &c., did 
not long survive the restoration of royalty in 
1660. But during its existence under the Com- 
monwealth it rendered aid to Mayhew, Eliot, 
and others, the funds being applied here through 
the Commissioners of the four Colonies. 

The Society being dissolved at the Restora- 
tion of monarchy under Charles II., an urgent 



310 APPENDIX. 

application was soon made for another Society 
having the same name and objects. The hon- 
orable and distinguished Robert Boyle was Pres- 
ident of the new Society. He had great wealth, 
and used it with profuse liberality. The cele- 
brated Bishop Burnet was his almoner in many 
private as well as public charities. He distrib- 
uted a thousand pounds a year for several years 
before his death among the French refugees in 
England. He also gave yearly, for a long time, 
the sum of three hundred pounds for the propa- 
gation of the Gospel in North America. Mr. 
Eliot's letters to his noble benefactor, which may 
be found in the Collections of the Mass. Hist. 
Society, will be read with interest. 

The Indian School, at Cambridge, was sup- 
ported by the funds of this Society, and a build- 
ing erected for it by the same. In 1665 there 
were eight Indian youths in that school. Eliot's 
Indian Bible was printed at the expense of this 
Society, and cost £500, or not far from two 
thousand dollars. 

For a few years, the General Court of Mas- 
sachusetts granted five hundred dollars towards 
the object of this Society. At the suggestion of 
the Society the Governor issued a request for 
contributions in its behalf to the towns of 



APPENDIX. 



311 



the Commonwealth. About $1560 were col- 
lected. 

This Society continues to this time. In 1800, 
its funds amounted to S20.000. At present they 
are not far from twice that sum. It is in the 
hands of members of the Unitarian denomi- 
nation.^ 



F. 

Letters of Mr. Eliot to Hon. Robert Boyle 
may be found in Mass. Hist. Coll. 1792. Also 
two interesting letters from the same in Fran- 
ces' Life of Eliot, pp. 250 and 267. 



G. 

See, for an account of the Missionary Labors 
of the Mayhews, Wilson's Memoirs of Eliot, pp. 
273—9. 



H. 

See Wilson's Memoirs of E., p. 290. 



* Sea Smith & Choulea' Hist. Mis?. 1832, Vol. II. 



312 




Mr. Eliot's Observations on forming the In- 
dian Alphabet, do. do., p. 284. 



K. 



For an account of Rev. William Leverich, and 
some other laborers among the Indians, see 
Wilson's Memoirs, pp. 257-60. p. 278-99. 



L. — See page 133. 

The following petitions of Mr. Eliot have been 
copied for this work from the Mass. State 
Papers. The first is a temperance document 
which has not lost any pertinency or force 
by age. 

Petition of John Eliot to the General 

Court concerning the Indians, 
Sheweth, 

That whereas the Indians have frequent 
recourse to English townes and especially to 
Boston where they too often see evil examples 
of excessive drinking with English who are too 



APPENDIX 



313 



often disgraced with that beastly sin of drunk- 
enness. And themselves many of them greatly 
delighting in strong liquors, not considering the 
strena-th and evil of them, and also too well 
knowing the liberty of the law which prohib- 
iteth above half a pint of wine to a man that 
therefore they may without offence to the law 
have their half pint, and when they have had 
it in one place they goe to another and have 
the like till they be drunken. And sometime 
find too much entertainment that way by such 
who keepe no ordinary only desire theire trade 
though it be with the hurt and perdition of their 
soules. Therefore my humble request unto this 
honored Court is this, that there may be but one 
ordinary in all Boston who may have liberty to 
sell v^ine or any strong drink unto the Indians. 
And that whoever shall further them in their 
vicious drinking* for theire own base ends who 
keep no ordinary may not be suffered in such a 
sinne without due punishment. And that at 
what ordinary soever in any other towne as 
well as Boston any Indian shall be found drunk, 
having had any considerable quantity of drink 
there, they should come under severe censure. 
These things I am bold to present unto you for 
the preventing of those scandalous evils which 

VOL. ITT. 27 



314 APPENDIX. 

greatly blemish and interrupt their entertain- 
ment of the Gospel through the policy of Satan 
who counter worketh Christ with not a little un- 
comfortable success. And thus with my hearty 
desire of the gracious and blessed presence of 
God among you in all your weighty affairs, I 
humbly take leave and rest your servant to com- 
mand in our Savour Christ, 

JOHN ELIOT, 
this 23d of the 8th 1648. 



M.— See page 134. 
The next petition is exceedingly interesting. 

To the Honorable the Governor and Council 
sitting at Boston the \2th of the 6th, 1675. 
The humble petition of John Eliot, 
Sheweth, ^ 

That the terrour of selling away such Indians 
in the Hands for perpetual Slaves who shall 
yield up themselves to your mercy is likely to 
be an effectual prolongation of the warre and 
such an exasperation of them as may produce 
we know not what evil consequences upon all 
the land. Christ hath said, " Blessed are the 
merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." This 
[treatment] of them is worse than death, To 



APPENDIX. 015 

put to death men that have deserved to die is an 
ordinance of God and a blessing is promised to 
it. It may be done in faith. The design of 
Christ in these last days is not to extirpate na- 
tions but to gospelize them. He will spread the 
Gospel sound the world about, rev. 11. 15. The 
kingdoms of the world have become the king- 
doms of our Lord and of his Christ. His sover- 
eign hand and grace hath brought the Gospel into 
these dark places of the earth. When we came 
we declared to the world, and it is recorded, yea 
we are instructed by our letters patent from the 
King's majesty that the endeavour of the In- 
dians conversion not their extirpation was one 
great end of our enterprize in coming to these 
ends of the earth. The Lord hath so succeeded 
his work as that (by his grace) they have the 
Holy Scriptures and sundry of themselves able 
to teach their countrymen the good knowledge 
of God. The light of the Gospel is risen 
among those who sat in darkness and in the re- 
gion of the shadow of death. And however 
some of them have refused to receive the Gos- 
pel, and are now incensed in their spirits unto a 
warre against the English, yet by that good 
promise, Ps. 1 : 1 — 6, I doubt not but the mean- 
ing of Christ is to open the door for the free pas- 



316 APPENDIX. 

sage of the Gospel among them, and that the 
Lord will publish that word, v. 6. Yet have I 
set my king on my holy hill of Syon, though 
some rage at it. My humble request is if you 
would follow Christ his design in this matter to 
promote the free passage of religion among 
them and not destroy them. To send them 
away from the light of the Gospel which Christ 
hath graciously given them unto a place, a state, 
a way of spiritual darkness to the eternal ruin 
of their souls is as I apprehend to act contrary 
to the mind of Christ. God's command is that 
we should inlarge the kingdom of Jesus Christ. 
Esay, 54 : 2. Enlarge the place of thy tent. It 
seemeth to me that to sell them away for slaves 
is to hinder the inlargement of his kingdom. 
How can a Christian [soule yield to act] — (these 
words are indistinct) in casting away their 
soules for which Christ hath with an eminent 
hand provided an offer of the Gospel. To sell 
soules for money seemeth to me a dangerous 
merchandize. If they deserve to dy, it is far 
better to be put to death under godly [rulers] 
who will take care if meanes may be used that 
they may die penitently. To fall away from all 
meanes of grace when Christ hath provided 
meanes of grace for them, is for us to be active 



APPENDIX. 317 

in the destroying their soules when we are 
highly obliged to seek their conversion and sal- 
vation and have opportunity in our hands so to 
doe. Deut. 23 : 15, 16."^ A fugitive servant 
from his Pagan master might not be delivered 
to his master, but be kept in Israel for the good 
of his soul. How much less lawful is it to sell 
away souls from under the light of the Gospel 
into a condition where their souls will be utterly 
lost, so far as appertains unto man. All men (of 
reading) condemned the Spaniard for cruelty 
upon this point for destroying men and depopu- 
lating the land. The country is large enough, 
here is land enough for them and us to, Prov. 
14 : 28. In the multitude of people is the King's 
honor. It will be much to the glory of Christ 
to have many brought in to worship his great 
name. I beseech the honored Council to par- 
don my boldnesse, and let the case of conscience 
be discussed orderly before the thing be acted. 
Cover my weaknesse and weigh the reason and 
religion that laboreth in this great case of con-, 
science. 



* " Thou shall not deliver unto his master the servant which \» 
escaped," &c. 

27=^ 



318 APPENDIX. 

N-— See page 135. 

The following petition of Mr. Eliot illustrates 
the kind interest which he took in the com- 
mon and private affairs of the Indians. I 
have copied it from Mass. State Papers, (In- 
dian Papers) 30. p. 15. 1639—1705. 

PETITION THAT TWO INDIANS MAY HAVE THE III 

DUE. 

The humble petition of John Eliot to this Hon- 
orable Court. 

First in the behalfe of Totherswompe unto 
whom one of Uncas his men doth owe 18 fath- 
om of wampompeague for 6 beare skins and he 
cannot obtain justice with ease and therefore 
doth humbly intreat this honored Court to pro- 
cure justice for him in this particular. Phoxon 
well knoweth his demand is just and true, as 
Thomas and Stanton can testify. 

The other is in behalf of Anonganisch, who 
lost 17 fathom which Uncas and his men tooke 
unjustly from him 3 years since when they fell 
upon the Indians by Mr. Winthrop's plantation, 
and he saith that when his case was at this 
Court formerly heard The Governour promised 
him that he should have justice, and that doth 
embolden him to sue again in the case. The 



APPENDIX. 319 

bringing them to doe justice doth so far cause 
them to honour and acknowledge God and there- 
fore I humbly entreat your favour in further- 
ance of the same, and so commending all your 
weighty occasions to the blessing of the Lord. 
Your worships servant 

in Jesus Christ, 

JOHN ELIOT/^^ 



O. — See page 48. 

THE CHURCH IN E.0XBURV. 

(See Am. Quarterly Register, Vol. Sih.) 
Thomas Welde, the first Minister of Rox- 
bury, was a minister in Essex, England. Re* 



* Those who are interested in the subjects referred to in other 
petitions of Mr. Eliot may find those petitions as follows : 

Petition that the Indians may have more land, Mass. State Papers, 
30, page 31. 

Petition in relation to exchange of land with the Indians, do. do, 
page 81. 

Statement of John Eliot respecting lands, do. do. pp. 99, 100, 

Complains of wrong done to the Nipmucks by the Narraganselts, 
do. do. page 138. 

Gookin's and Eliot's petition for lands for the Christian Indians, 
do. do. p. 286, 

There are also some original MSS. of Mr. Eliot's in the Hutchin- 
son papers in the Library of the Mass. Historical Society, but they 
are somewhat illegible and of no special pertinency to the present 

WOTk, 



320 APPENDIX. 

fusing to conform to the requirements of the 
Established Church, he sought the quiet enjoy- 
ment of the rights of conscience in this country. 
He arrived in Boston, June 5, 1632, and entered 
upon the pastoral office in Roxbury, at which 
time the Church was embodied. In 1641, he 
was sent as an agent, with Rev. Hugh Peters, 
to England for the Province and never returned. 

John Eliot became teacher of the Church in 
Roxbury, Nov. 5, 1632. The next year he be- 
came colleague with Mr. Welde. 

Samuel Danforth was colleague with Mr. 
Eliot after Mr. Welde went to England. He 
continued in office 24 years. 

Nehemiah Walter, born in Ireland, came to 
Boston at the age of 16. Graduated at Harvard 
College, and was the third colleague of Mr. 
Eliot. He had so good knowledge of the French 
Language that he preached to a society of French 
Protestants while their Pastor was absent. 
Whitefield called him " the good old Puritan." 
A well known publication of his is called, " The 
Wonderfulness of Christ." 

Thomas Walter, his son, became colleague 
with his father, but died 7 years after. 

Oliver Peabody, son of the Missionary at 
Natick of the same name, succeeded Mr. Wal- 



APPENDIX. 



321 



ter, but continued only 18 months, and died 
when on the eve of being married, aged 27. 

Amos Adams, was Pastor at Roxbury 22 years 
and died of the epidemic which prevailed in the 
camp at Roxbury and Cambridge. The title of 
one of his published Sermons was, The only 
Hope and Refuge of Sinners. 

Elifhalet Porter succeeded him and con- 
tinued in office 51 years. 

George Putnam, the present Pastor, was or- 
dained colleague with him, July 7, 1830. 

A Church was organized in Roxbury, Sept. 
18, 1834, composed of Members of Evangelical 
sentiments, and of the Orthodox Congregational 
denomination. It took the name of "Eliot 

Church." 

Rev. John S. C. Abbott w^as ordained Pastor, 

Nov. 25, 1835. 

Rev. Augustus C. Thompson was ordained 
Pastor, July 27, 1842. 



F, — See page 51. 

ROXBURY " ELTOT SCHOOL FUND." 

" Eliot School Fund had its origin in the do- 
nation of Rev. John Eliot, of Roxbury, well 
known as the Apostle to the Indians, who, in 



322 APPENDIX. 

the year 1689, conveyed an estate of about sev- 
enty-five acres of land to certain persons and 
their heirs, as Trustees for " the maintenance, 
support and encouragement of a school and 
school master at that part of Roxbury, commonly 
called Jamaica or the Pond Plain, for the teach- 
ing and instructing of the children of that end 
of the town (together with such Indians and ne- 
groes as shall or may come to the said school) 
and to no other use, intent, or purpose what- 
ever. This is the language of the deed." (The 
fund was afterwards increased by donations.) 

" The Eliot school fund consists (1840) of 
$9,699 94. The School also possesses some 
real estate, which yields an annual income of 
S381." 

Report of the Committee on the School Fund, 
Roxbury. Auditor's Reports, 1S31— 1846. 



The following are the principal of Mr. Eliot's 
publications. It is remarkable that no entire 
Sermon of his has been preserved. 

Answer to Norcott's book against Infant Bap- 
tism. 

The Harmony of the Gospels in the Holy 
History of Jesus Christ. 



APPENDIX. 823 

The Christian Commonwealth. 

The Divine management of Gospel Churches 
by the Ordinance of Councils, constituted in or- 
der according to the Scriptures, which may be a 
means of uniting those two holy and eminent 
parties, the Presbyterians and the Congrega- 
tional. 

Indian Bible, Catechism, and Psalms of Da- 
vid in metre. 

Baxter's " Call to the unconverted," translated 
into the Indian Tongue. 

The Practice of Piety, translated into the 
Indian Tongue. This book was written by 
Lewis Bayly, for some time Chaplain to James 
the First. In 1792, it had reached the seventy- 
first edition. The author was promoted to the 
see of Bangor, 1616. See Lib. Am. Biog. V. 
245. Francis' Life of Eliot. Biog. Britan. 
Art. Bayly. 

Thomas Shepard's Sincere Convert, trans- 
lated into the Indian tongue. 

Thomas Shepard's Sound Believer, translated 
into the Indian tongue. 

Indian Primer. 

This little book has been of great help to 
linguists by the division of syllables in it for 
children, thereby giving learners of a larger 
growth some insight into the formation of In- 
dian words. 



324 APPENDIX. 



NOTE. 

The following appropriate conclusion to this volume came to hand 
just as the last pages were going to press. 

The Choctaws to their White Brethren of 
Ireland. — A meeting for the relief of the starving 
poor of Ireland was held at the Choctaw agency, on 
the 23d ult. Maj. William Armstrong was called to 
the chair, and J. B. Luce was appointed secretary. 
A circular of the " Memphis committee" was read 
by Maj. Armstrong, after which the meeting contrib- 
uted $ 170. All subscribed, agents, missionaries, 
traders and Indians, a considerable portion of which 
fund was made up by the latter. The " poor Indian " 
sending his mite to the poor Irish ! 

[Arkansas Intelligencer, April 3.] 



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